The Theory And Practice Of Concurrency

Since Professor Hoare's book Communicating Sequential Processes was first published, his notation has been extensively used for teaching and applying concurrency theory. The most significant development since then has been the emergence of tools to support the teaching and industrial application of CSP. This has turned CSP from a notation used mainly for toy examples into one which can and does support the description of industrial-sized problems. In order to understand the tools you need a good grasp of the fundamental concepts of CSP, therefore the book is, in the first instance, a text on the principles of the language rather than being a manual on how to apply its tools. The Theory and Practice of Concurrency is divided into 3 sections. Part I is a foundation course on CSP, covering essentially the same material as the Hoare book, except that most of the mathematical theory has been omitted. It introduces the ideas behind the operational, denotational and algebraic models of CSP. Parts II and III go into more detail about the theory and practice of CSP. Either of them would make a one semester course or though they are independent of each other. This book assumes no mathematical knowledge except for a basic understanding of sets, sequences and functions. Part I and III use no sophisticated mathematics, and the extra amount needed for Part II is contained within Appendix A (which introduces the theory of partial order and metric/restriction spaces). The book brings substantial new insights into the important subjects of computer security, fault tolerance, real-time modelling, communications protocols and distributed databases. Each of these is supported by a case study and guidance on how to apply automated analysis to verify systems.

CSP notation has been used extensively for teaching and applying concurrency theory, ever since the publication of the text Communicating Sequential Processes by C.A.R. Hoare in 1985. Both a programming language and a specification language, the theory of CSP helps users to understand concurrent systems, and to decide whether a program meets its specification. As a member of the family of process algebras, the concepts of communication and interaction are presented in an algebraic style. An invaluable reference on the state of the art in CSP, Understanding Concurrent Systems also serves as a comprehensive introduction to the field, in addition to providing material for a number of more advanced courses. A first point of reference for anyone wanting to use CSP or learn about its theory, the book also introduces other views of concurrency, using CSP to model and explain these. The text is fully integrated with CSP-based tools such as FDR, and describes how to create new tools based on FDR. Most of the book relies on no theoretical background other than a basic knowledge of sets and sequences. Sophisticated mathematical arguments are avoided whenever possible. Topics and features: presents a comprehensive introduction to CSP; discusses the latest advances in CSP, covering topics of operational semantics, denotational models, finite observation models and infinite-behaviour models, and algebraic semantics; explores the practical application of CSP, including timed modelling, discrete modelling, parameterised verifications and the state explosion problem, and advanced topics in the use of FDR; examines the ability of CSP to describe and enable reasoning about parallel systems modelled in other paradigms; covers a broad variety of concurrent systems, including combinatorial, timed, priority-based, mobile, shared variable, statecharts, buffered and asynchronous systems; contains exercises and case studies to support the text; supplies further tools and information at the associated website: http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/ucs/. From undergraduate students of computer science in need of an introduction to the area, to researchers and practitioners desiring a more in-depth understanding of theory and practice of concurrent systems, this broad-ranging text/reference is essential reading for anyone interested in Hoare’s CSP.

This book describes the theory, algorithms, and practical implementation techniques behind transaction processing in information technology systems.

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

This book is a celebration of Leslie Lamport's work on concurrency, interwoven in four-and-a-half decades of an evolving industry: from the introduction of the first personal computer to an era when parallel and distributed multiprocessors are abundant. His works lay formal foundations for concurrent computations executed by interconnected computers. Some of the algorithms have become standard engineering practice for fault tolerant distributed computing – distributed systems that continue to function correctly despite failures of individual components. He also developed a substantial body of work on the formal specification and verification of concurrent systems, and has contributed to the development of automated tools applying these methods. Part I consists of technical chapters of the book and a biography. The technical chapters of this book present a retrospective on Lamport's original ideas from experts in the field. Through this lens, it portrays their long-lasting impact. The chapters cover timeless notions Lamport introduced: the Bakery algorithm, atomic shared registers and sequential consistency; causality and logical time; Byzantine Agreement; state machine replication and Paxos; temporal logic of actions (TLA). The professional biography tells of Lamport's career, providing the context in which his work arose and broke new grounds, and discusses LaTeX – perhaps Lamport’s most influential contribution outside the field of concurrency. This chapter gives a voice to the people behind the achievements, notably Lamport himself, and additionally the colleagues around him, who inspired, collaborated, and helped him drive worldwide impact. Part II consists of a selection of Leslie Lamport's most influential papers. This book touches on a lifetime of contributions by Leslie Lamport to the field of concurrency and on the extensive influence he had on people working in the field. It will be of value to historians of science, and to researchers and students who work in the area of concurrency and who are interested to read about the work of one of the most influential researchers in this field.

This book presents the fundamentals of concurrency theory with clarity and rigor. The authors start with the semantic structure, namely labelled transition systems, which provides us with the means and the tools to express processes, to compose them, and to prove properties they enjoy. The rest of the book relies on Milner's Calculus of Communicating Systems, tailored versions of which are used to study various notions of equality between systems, and to investigate in detail the expressive power of the models considered. The authors proceed from very basic results to increasingly complex issues, with many examples and exercises that help to reveal the many subtleties of the topic. The book is suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in computer science and engineering, and scientists engaged with theories of concurrency.

Summary Concurrency in .NET teaches you how to build concurrent and scalable programs in .NET using the functional paradigm. This intermediate-level guide is aimed at developers, architects, and passionate computer programmers who are interested in writing code with improved speed and effectiveness by adopting a declarative and pain-free programming style. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Technology Unlock the incredible performance built into your multi-processor machines. Concurrent applications run faster because they spread work across processor cores, performing several tasks at the same time. Modern tools and techniques on the .NET platform, including parallel LINQ, functional programming, asynchronous programming, and the Task Parallel Library, offer powerful alternatives to traditional thread-based concurrency. About the Book Concurrency in .NET teaches you to write code that delivers the speed you need for performance-sensitive applications. Featuring examples in both C# and F#, this book guides you through concurrent and parallel designs that emphasize functional programming in theory and practice. You'll start with the foundations of concurrency and master essential techniques and design practices to optimize code running on modern multiprocessor systems. What's Inside The most important concurrency abstractions Employing the agent programming model Implementing real-time event-stream processing Executing unbounded asynchronous operations Best concurrent practices and patterns that apply to all platforms About the Reader For readers skilled with C# or F#. About the Book Riccardo Terrell is a seasoned software engineer and Microsoft MVP who is passionate about functional programming. He has over 20 years' experience delivering cost-effective technology solutions in a competitive business environment. Table of Contents PART 1 - Benefits of functional programming applicable to concurrent programs Functional concurrency foundations Functional programming techniques for concurrency Functional data structures and immutability PART 2 - How to approach the different parts of a concurrent program The basics of processing big data: data parallelism, part 1 PLINQ and MapReduce: data parallelism, part 2 Real-time event streams: functional reactive programming Task-based functional parallelism Task asynchronicity for the win Asynchronous functional programming in F# Functional combinators for fluent concurrent programming Applying reactive programming everywhere with agents Parallel workflow and agent programming with TPL Dataflow PART 3 - Modern patterns of concurrent programming applied Recipes and design patterns for successful concurrent programming Building a scalable mobile app with concurrent functional programming

If you're looking to take full advantage of multi-core processors with concurrent programming, this practical book provides the knowledge and hands-on experience you need. The Art of Concurrency is one of the few resources to focus on implementing algorithms in the shared-memory model of multi-core processors, rather than just theoretical models or distributed-memory architectures. The book provides detailed explanations and usable samples to help you transform algorithms from serial to parallel code, along with advice and analysis for avoiding mistakes that programmers typically make when first attempting these computations. Written by an Intel engineer with over two decades of parallel and concurrent programming experience, this book will help you: Understand parallelism and concurrency Explore differences between programming for shared-memory and distributed-memory Learn guidelines for designing multithreaded applications, including testing and tuning Discover how to make best use of different threading libraries, including Windows threads, POSIX threads, OpenMP, and Intel Threading Building Blocks Explore how to implement concurrent algorithms that involve sorting, searching, graphs, and other practical computations The Art of Concurrency shows you how to keep algorithms scalable to take advantage of new processors with even more cores. For developing parallel code algorithms for concurrent programming, this book is a must.