Re: Thread libraries and Deadlock - jGuru.com

[A E Lawrence <adrian.lawrence@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Richard Beton wrote:
> 
> Yesterday, I submitted two entries to the jGuru website which you may find
> informative. They are
> 
> Where can I find a set of data structures to deal with many of the
> concurrent programming concepts?
>     http://www.jguru.com/jguru/faq/view.jsp?EID=41930
> 
> What is deadlock? How can I eliminate it?
>     http://www.jguru.com/jguru/faq/view.jsp?EID=132683
> 
> You can, of course, add your own comments should you wish to.

Well done. But just one comment. You note there Jeremy's and Peter's
proofs. That of course depends on the Java people having implemented
notify, wait and the rest correctly. We don't know that. I very much
doubt if they know that :-(

So given the scepticism with which formal methods are usually met by
those who know little about the subject, I fear lest something breaks,
and is then held up as an example of how useless is proof. So it would
be nice if the preconditions (that the Java primitives are correctly
implemented and specified) is spelt out somewhere.

Adrian
-- 
Dr A E Lawrence (from home)