Product Description

Concurrency provides a thoroughly updated approach to the basic concepts and techniques behind concurrent programming. Concurrent programming is complex and demands a much more formal approach than sequential programming. In order to develop a thorough understanding of the topic Magee and Kramer present concepts, techniques and problems through a variety of forms: informal descriptions, illustrative examples, abstract models and concrete Java examples. These combine to provide problem patterns and associated solution techniques which enable students to recognise problems and arrive at solutions.

New features include:

• New chapters covering program verification and logical properties.
• More student exercises.
• Supporting website contains an updated version of the LTSA tool for modelling concurrency, model animation, and model checking.
• Website also includes the full set of state models, java examples, and demonstration programs and a comprehensive set of overhead slides for course presentation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #176513 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 434 pages

Review
"...this well written book [...] will be useful to those designing distributed systems"
––Computing Reviews, June 2000

From the Back Cover
‘I love this book! It is beautifully written and the combined FSP/Java approach to model–based development is leading–edge.  The supporting materials, including the LTSA software and the lecture slides, are superb.’ (Scott Smolka, SUNY at Stony Brook)

This book provides a systematic and practical approach to designing, analyzing and implementing concurrent programs, using both state models and Java programs to introduce and illustrate key concepts and techniques. Topics covered include:

• threads and interaction
• interference, exclusion and synchronization
• deadlock, safety and liveness properties
• message passing
• concurrent software architectures
• dynamic and timed systems.

Established as a key learning resource for computer science graduate and undergraduate students, this second edition includes new coverage of Program Verification and Logical Properties. The accompanying website contains an updated version of the LTSA tool for modeling concurrency, model animation and model checking. The website also includes the full set of state models, Java examples and demonstration programs and a comprehensive series of overhead slides for course presentation.

Ideal for classroom use or self–study, this book provides readers with the means to understand the fundamentals and practice of concurrency.

About the Author
Jeff Magee and Jeff Kramer are both of Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, UK

Customer Reviews

Excellent practical introduction to concurrency
The authors have taken a very practical, visual approach to the subject-and it works well. The various features are explained fully in the text and are graphically illustrated as applets on the supplied disc. This book is a good 'read' and thought has gone into keeping the reader interested in this tricky subject. It has been a welcome ally to help me deal with the set book for the OU course M301. This book is money well spent.

OK for beginners...
I bought this bought to aid my studies for a concurrency course at university. The book is well written and does explain things very well, although it did not go into enough depth that I needed for the course. It missed out some of the fundamental issues of concurrency, such as Dekker's Algorithm. This book is fine for beginners, or indeed people who want to program concurrently in Java, without much background knowledge. To be honest I was a bit disappointed.

Excellent Textbook on Concurrency Theory and Practice
I have used Magee and Kramer's book (or rather their manuscript) twice in the UG programme of the Dept. of Computer Science at University College London. I used it to teach a 30 hours course on Concurrency to final year BSc students in Computer Science.

The book is very appealing for several reasons:

Firstly, it is the only available book that provides an engineering discipline to concurrency. It covers both a sound introduction to the theory of concurrency and practical guidelines how to design concurrent programs using the UML and Java.

Secondly, the book is nicely written indeed. The concepts are well motivated, the intriguingly difficult theory of concurrency is well explained and the book is full of examples that show both theory and practice of Concurrency.

Thirdly, the book is not only a book; it's a nicely boundled package. It comes with Java demonstration applets that I used to visualize concurrency concepts, such as Monitors, Mutual Exclusion and Fairness in the class room. Moreover, the book includes a CD with a tool that students (and professors) can use for modelling and model checking purposes. The tool implements labelled transition systems analysis and supports visualization of label transition system execution.

Finally the web site that accompanies the book is full of exercises and exam questions and model answers are available too.

Using this material was a truly positive experience.