Preface

This book arose from concurrent programming courses taught by the authors at Imperial College London and from their experience with using concurrency in industrial applications. It was motivated by dissatisfaction with the lack of practical and accessible techniques that aid reasoning about designs for concurrent software.

Most courses and textbooks in this area are targeted at either the theory and formal methods aspects of concurrency or the practical aspects of concurrent programming and concurrency in operating systems. Due to the lack of a widely available concurrent programming language, textbooks had to resort to special purpose notations that could not easily be related by the reader to normal sequential programming practice. Two recent technical developments have made it possible to offer a practical and accessible approach to learning about concurrency and concurrent programming. First, model-checking tools have made the use of design models for concurrent behavior practical, informative and rewarding. Second, the availability and widespread use of Java has solved the problem of finding an accessible general purpose programming language with in-built concurrency constructs. As a result, this book offers a soundly-based systematic approach to the development of concurrent software which is supported by software tools, is interesting and fun to use, and can be used to develop practical concurrent programs.

What Can Readers Expect from this Book?

The book provides a comprehensive description and explanation of the important concepts and techniques in concurrent programming, the problems that arise and the means for ensuring that desirable properties are achieved and undesirable ones avoided. Readers will learn about concepts such as threads and interaction, gain an appreciation of how these lead to problems such as interference and deadlock, and learn how to use techniques such as exclusion and synchronization to good effect.

To ensure a thorough understanding, concurrency concepts, techniques and problems are presented in many forms: through informal descriptions and illustrative examples, abstractly in models and concretely in Java. The modeling techniques will enable readers to reason about the properties of their proposed designs and programs. As in other engineering disciplines, modeling is promoted as a means to gaining greater confidence in the proposed designs. Using Java, readers can turn their designs into programs.

Together with a knowledge and understanding of the principles of concurrency, readers can expect to aquire experience in its application. The book uses examples to illustrate concepts and techniques, and exercises for learning by doing. Use of the associated analysis tool provides practical experience of concurrency modeling, model animation, model property checking and model correction. Similarly, use of Java provides practical experience of programming concurrency.

Thus, the book provides:

• a systematic treatment of the concepts and issues in concurrency;

• a rigorous technique to specify and model concurrent behavior, with analysis tools for animation and verification;

• a wide range of Java examples to illustrate the concepts and issues in concurrent programming.

We hope that this will leave readers with the ability to use concurrency with confidence and expertise, recognizing when problems might arise and knowing how to avoid or solve them. Concurrency is a fascinating and challenging area of software design. The combination of learning and doing should make acquiring design skills in this area an interesting and enjoyable process. We hope that readers will find that concurrency can be both challenging and fun!