Product Description
This book is the first comprehensive presentation of the principles and tools available for programming multiprocessor machines. It is of immediate use to programmers working with the new architectures. For example, the next generation of computer game consoles will all be multiprocessor-based, and the game industry is currently struggling to understand how to address the programming challenges presented by these machines.
This change in the industry is so fundamental that it is certain to require a significant response by universities, and courses on multicore programming will become a staple of computer science curriculums.
The authors are well known and respected in this community and both teach and conduct research in this area. Prof. Maurice Herlihy is on the faculty of Brown University. He is the recipient of the 2003 Dijkstra Prize in distributed computing. Prof. Nir Shavit is on the faculty of Tel-Aviv University and a member of the technical staff at Sun Microsystems Laboratories. In 2004 they shared the Gödel Prize, the highest award in theoretical computer science.
* THE book on multicore programming, the new paradigm of computer science
* Written by the world’s most revered experts in multiprocessor programming and performance
* Includes examples, models, exercises, PowerPoint slides, and sample Java programs
 | US $2.95 End Date: Tuesday Jun-12-2012 20:01:10 PDT Buy It Now for only: US $2.95 Buy it now | Add to watch list |
If you’re working in a large enterprise, the major trends at the moment are SOA and SaaS – and this book does not deal with them in the context of multicore. The books is also too academic and there’s too much theory and not enough practical advice for enterprise architects.
Amazon User Rating: 1 / 5
I took a class with Professor Herlihy at Brown in which he used perhaps an early version of this text. It was a great class and a great textbook, likely one of the best, most understandable texts I’ve encountered in the world of advanced computer science. The chapters are relatively short and to the point, each requiring no more the 30 – 45 minutes of reading. It’s very well paced and you never feel that familiar information overload so common in computer science texts. This is quite a feat for an advanced topic in computer science. It’s also quite accessible, it seems someone with only cursory understanding of basic computer science could grasp much of what is conveyed, while at the same time it never feels “dumbed down” for the laymen. Highly recommended!
Amazon User Rating: 5 / 5
If you’ve already gotten your feet wet with multi-threaded programming, but you haven’t been able to maximize concurrency yet, this is the book you need. It includes thorough explanations of all the latest approaches and algorithms. And with multi-core processors becoming ubiquitous, this book will remain of lasting value.
Amazon User Rating: 5 / 5
What this book is not:
- A programmer’s cookbook
- A programming manual
- A math text
This is an engineering theory textbook: enough theory to teach you how to reason about practical problems on the problems’ own terms. If it were easy, such books would be unnecessary. Learning to reason about these problems is hard and the books are hard. This book is no exception. That said, it is generally very clear, but it is not light reading or easy study. It demands serious study time. Given the increasing importance of concurrency to real-world performance (and the economics of computing) the investment of time seems likely to be profitable.
The book progresses from simple (but still difficult) foundation principles to a variety of established techniques. It is not concerned with other issues of software design and construction but it covers its own purview thoroughly.
The exercises are non-trivial and sometimes geniunely hard. Some call for programming, some for thinking. They indicate that the authors have a deep grasp not only of their subject matter but of how to teach it. The examples are in Java. (A note on doing the exercises: due to the inherent limitations of threading on single-processor/single-core/single-thread machines, errors in code may not show up on such machines; if you don’t have true multi-thread hardware, beware.)
Amazon User Rating: 5 / 5
Took the class from Herlihy that goes with this book. He’s an extremely intelligent and knowledgeable man, and the book is invaluable. I will be using it many times in my future computer science career. Lots of valuable reference information, algorithms, proofs of correctness (critical for parallel systems!), and key core concepts that help you think about multiprocessor problems in new ways.
Amazon User Rating: 5 / 5