Lesson: Concurrency
Computer users take it for granted that their systems can do more than
one thing at a time. They assume that they can continue to work in a
word processor, while other applications download files, manage the print
queue, and stream audio. Even a single application is often expected to do
more than one thing at a time. For example, that streaming audio
application must simultaneously read the digital audio off the network,
decompress it, manage playback, and update its display. Even the word
processor should always be ready to respond to keyboard and mouse
events, no matter how busy it is reformatting text or updating the
display. Software that can do such things is known as
concurrent software.
The Java platform is designed from the ground up to support concurrent
programming, with basic concurrency support in the Java programming
language and the Java class libraries. Since version 5.0, the Java
platform has also included high-level concurrency APIs. This lesson
introduces the platform's basic concurrency support and summarizes some
of the high-level APIs in the java.util.concurrent
packages.
