Friday, July 1, 2011

Java BuzzWords - 10


Multithreaded

There are many things going on at the same time in the world around us. Multithreading is a way of building applications with multiple threads Unfortunately, writing programs that deal with many things happening at once can be much more difficult than writing in the conventional single-threaded C and C++ style.

Java has a sophisticated set of synchronization primitives that are based on the widely used monitor and condition variable paradigm introduced by C.A.R.Hoare. By integrating these concepts into the language (rather than only in classes) they become much easier to use and are more robust. Much of the style of this integration came from Xerox's Cedar/Mesa system.

Other benefits of multithreading are better interactive responsiveness and real-time behavior. This is limited, however, by the underlying platform: stand-alone Java runtime environments have good real-time behavior. Running on top of other systems like Unix, Windows, the Macintosh, or Windows NT limits the real-time responsiveness to that of the underlying system.

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