Java Concurrency In Practice

Threads are a fundamental part of the Java platform. As multicore processors become the norm, using concurrency effectively becomes essential for building high-performance applications. Java SE 5 and 6 are a huge step forward for the development of concurrent applications, with improvements to the Java Virtual Machine to support high-performance, highly scalable concurrent classes and a rich set of new concurrency building blocks. In Java Concurrency in Practice, the creators of these new facilities explain not only how they work and how to use them, but also the motivation and design patterns behind them. However, developing, testing, and debugging multithreaded programs can still be very difficult; it is all too easy to create concurrent programs that appear to work, but fail when it matters most: in production, under heavy load. Java Concurrency in Practice arms readers with both the theoretical underpinnings and concrete techniques for building reliable, scalable, maintainable concurrent applications. Rather than simply offering an inventory of concurrency APIs and mechanisms, it provides design rules, patterns, and mental models that make it easier to build concurrent programs that are both correct and performant. This book covers: Basic concepts of concurrency and thread safety Techniques for building and composing thread-safe classes Using the concurrency building blocks in java.util.concurrent Performance optimization dos and don'ts Testing concurrent programs Advanced topics such as atomic variables, nonblocking algorithms, and the Java Memory Model

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This concise book empowers all Java developers to master the complexity of the Java thread APIs and concurrency utilities. This knowledge aids the Java developer in writing correct and complex performing multithreaded applications. Java's thread APIs and concurrency utilities are among its most powerful and challenging APIs and language features. Java beginners typically find it very difficult to use these features to write correct multithreaded applications. Threads and the Concurrency Utilities helps all Java developers master and use these capabilities effectively. This book is divided into two parts of four chapters each. Part 1 focuses on the Thread APIs and Part 2 focuses on the concurrency utilities. In Part 1, you learn about Thread API basics and runnables, synchronization and volatility, waiting and notification, and the additional capabilities of thread groups, thread local variables, and the Timer Framework. In Part 2, you learn about concurrency utilities basics and executors, synchronizers, the Locking Framework, and the additional capabilities of concurrent collections, atomic variables, and the Fork/Join Framework. Each chapter ends with select exercises designed to challenge your grasp of the chapter's content. An appendix provides the answers to these exercises. A second appendix explores how threads are used by various standard class library APIs. Specifically, you learn about threads in the contexts of Swing, JavaFX, and Java 8's Streams API. What You Will Learn • How to do thread runnables, synchronization, volatility, waiting and notification, thread groups, thread local variables, and the Timer Framework• How to create multithreaded applications that work correctly.• What are concurrency utilities basics and executors• What are synchronizers, the Locking Framework, concurrent collections, atomic variables, and the Fork/Join Framework and how to use them• How to leverage the concurrency utilities to write more complex multithreaded applications and achieve greater performance• How to apply thread usage in Swing, JavaFX, and Java 8 Streams API contexts Audience The primary audience is Java beginners and the secondary audience is more advanced Java developers who have worked with the Thread APIs and the Concurrency Utilities.

Master the principles and techniques of multithreaded programming with the Java 8 Concurrency API About This Book Implement concurrent applications using the Java 8 Concurrency API and its new components Improve the performance of your applications or process more data at the same time, taking advantage of all of your resources. Construct real-world examples related to machine learning, data mining, image processing, and client/server environments Who This Book Is For If you are a competent Java developer with a good understanding of concurrency but have no knowledge of how to effectively implement concurrent programs or use streams to make processes more efficient, then this book is for you. What You Will Learn Design concurrent applications by converting a sequential algorithm into a concurrent one Discover how to avoid all the possible problems you can get in concurrent algorithms Use the Executor framework to manage concurrent tasks without creating threads Extend and modify Executors to adapt their behavior to your needs Solve problems using the divide and conquer technique and the Fork/Join framework Process massive data sets with parallel streams and Map/Reduce implementation Control data-race conditions using concurrent data structures and synchronization mechanisms Test and monitor concurrent applications In Detail Concurrency programming allows several large tasks to be divided into smaller sub-tasks, which are further processed as individual tasks that run in parallel. All the sub-tasks are combined together once the required results are achieved; they are then merged to get the final output. The whole process is very complex. This process goes from the design of concurrent algorithms to the testing phase where concurrent applications need extra attention. Java includes a comprehensive API with a lot of ready-to-use components to implement powerful concurrency applications in an easy way, but with a high flexibility to adapt these components to your needs. The book starts with a full description of design principles of concurrent applications and how to parallelize a sequential algorithm. We'll show you how to use all the components of the Java Concurrency API from basics to the most advanced techniques to implement them in powerful concurrency applications in Java. You will be using real-world examples of complex algorithms related to machine learning, data mining, natural language processing, image processing in client / server environments. Next, you will learn how to use the most important components of the Java 8 Concurrency API: the Executor framework to execute multiple tasks in your applications, the phaser class to implement concurrent tasks divided into phases, and the Fork/Join framework to implement concurrent tasks that can be split into smaller problems (using the divide and conquer technique). Toward the end, we will cover the new inclusions in Java 8 API, the Map and Reduce model, and the Map and Collect model. The book will also teach you about the data structures and synchronization utilities to avoid data-race conditions and other critical problems. Finally, the book ends with a detailed description of the tools and techniques that you can use to test a Java concurrent application. Style and approach A complete guide implementing real-world examples with algorithms related to machine learning, data mining, and natural language processing in client/server environments. All the examples are explained in a step-by-step approach.

More than ever, learning to program concurrency is critical to creating faster, responsive applications. Speedy and affordable multicore hardware is driving the demand for high-performing applications, and you can leverage the Java platform to bring these applications to life. Concurrency on the Java platform has evolved, from the synchronization model of JDK to software transactional memory (STM) and actor-based concurrency. This book is the first to show you all these concurrency styles so you can compare and choose what works best for your applications. You'll learn the benefits of each of these models, when and how to use them, and what their limitations are. Through hands-on exercises, you'll learn how to avoid shared mutable state and how to write good, elegant, explicit synchronization-free programs so you can create easy and safe concurrent applications. The techniques you learn in this book will take you from dreading concurrency to mastering and enjoying it. Best of all, you can work with Java or a JVM language of your choice - Clojure, JRuby, Groovy, or Scala - to reap the growing power of multicore hardware. If you are a Java programmer, you'd need JDK 1.5 or later and the Akka 1.0 library. In addition, if you program in Scala, Clojure, Groovy or JRuby you'd need the latest version of your preferred language. Groovy programmers will also need GPars.

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.