Building sophisticated Java applets means learning about threading--if you need to read data from a network, for example, you can't afford to let a delay in its delivery lock up your entire applet. Java Threads introduces the Java threading API and uses non-computing analogies--such as scenarios involving bank tellers--to explain the need for synchronization and the dangers of deadlock. Scott Oaks and Henry Wong follow up their high-level examples with more detailed discussions on building a thread scheduler in Java, dealing with advanced synchronization issues, and handling exceptions.
Threads are essential to Java programming, but learning to use them effectively is a nontrivial task. This new edition of the classic "Java Threads" shows you how to take full advantage of Java's threading facilities and brings you up-to-date with the watershed changes in Java 2 Standard Edition version 5.0 (J2SE 5.0). It provides a thorough, step-by-step approach to threads programming.
Java's threading system is simple relative to other threading systems. In earlier versions of Java, this simplicity came with tradeoffs: some of the advanced features in other threading systems were not available in Java. J2SE 5.0 changes all that: it provides a large number of new thread-related classes that make the task of writing multithreaded programs that much easier.
You'll learn where to use threads to increase efficiency, how to use them effectively, and how to avoid common mistakes. This book discusses problems like deadlock, race conditions, and starvation in detail, helping you to write code without hidden bugs.
"Java Threads," Third Edition, has been thoroughly expanded and revised. It incorporates the concurrency utilities from java.util.concurrent throughout. New chapters cover thread performance, using threads with Swing, threads and Collection classes, thread pools, and threads and I/O (traditional, new, and interrupted). Developers who cannot yet deploy J2SE 5.0 can use thread utilities provided in the Appendix to achieve similar functionality with earlier versions of Java.
Topics include:
Lock starvation and deadlock detection
Atomic classes and minimal synchronization (J2SE 5.0)
Interaction of Java threads with Swing, I/O, and Collection classes
Programmatically controlled locks and condition variables (J2SE 5.0)
Thread performance and security
Thread pools (J2SE 5.0)
Thread groups
Platform-specific thread scheduling
Task schedulers (J2SE 5.0)
Parallelizing loops for multiprocessor machines
In short, this new edition of "Java Threads" covers everything you need to know about threads, from the simplest animation program to the most complex applications. If you plan to do any serious work in Java, you will find this book invaluable.
Scott Oaks is a senior software engineer for the Java Performance Engineering group at Sun Microsystems and the author of four books in the O'Reilly Java series.
Formerly a senior systems engineer at Sun Microsystems, Henry Wong is an independent consultant working on various Java related projects.
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