Directory of Threads Resources

Home > Computers > Programming > Threads

A thread is a context of execution within a program. Multithreaded programming deals with designing a program to have parts of it execute concurrently.

Subcategories

• C++
• Java
• POSIX
• Win32

Resources in This Category

• 1024cores

  http://www.1024cores.net/
  A site devoted to lock-free algorithms, scalable architecture, multicore design patterns, parallel computations, threading libraries, tooling support and related topics.

• A Thread Performance Comparison

  http://static.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/usenix-nt98/full_papers/zabatta/zabatta_html/zabatta.html
  Compares Windows NT and Solaris on a symmetric multiprocessor machine.

• Application-Level Abstractions for Lock-Free Data Sharing

  http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/application-level-abstractions-for-lock-/205200452
  Describes lock-free data sharing, otherwise known as "wait-free data sharing" as an alternative to the use of locks.

• Apply Critical Sections Consistently

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/apply-critical-sections-consistently/202401098
  Critical sections are the One True Tool for guaranteeing mutual exclusion on shared variables. Like most tools, these must be applied consistently, and with the intended meanings.

• Avoid Exposing Concurrency: Hide It Inside Synchronous Methods

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/avoid-exposing-concurrency-hide-it-insi/220600388
  Explains where to start when trying to add concurrency to a mass of existing code.

• Avoiding the Perils of C++0x Data Races

  http://www.devx.com/cplus/Article/42725
  Find out what dangers race conditions in general and C++0x data races in particular pose to concurrent code, as well as the strategies for avoiding them.

• Bibliography on Threads and Multithreading

  http://liinwww.ira.uka.de/bibliography/Os/threads.html
  Part of the Computer Science Bibliography Collection.

• Break Up and Interleave Work to Keep Threads Responsive

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/break-up-and-interleave-work-to-keep-thr/217801299
  Breaking up is hard to do, but interleaving can be even subtler.

• comp.programming.threads FAQ

  http://www.serpentine.com/blog/threads-faq/
  Frequently asked questions (by Bryan O'Sullivan).

• Concurrency in the D Programming Language

  http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1609144
  Andrei Alexandrescu explains recent hardware changes allowing concurrency and how the D programming languages addresses these possibilities.

• Deadlock: The Problem and a Solution

  http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/misc/misc/threadsprocesses/article.php/c15545/
  This article explains what deadlocks are and describes ways of circumventing deadlocks.

• Fundamental Concepts of Parallel Programming

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/fundamental-concepts-of-parallel-program/212002418
  Explains fundamental concepts for moving from a linear to a parallel programming model

• Generic Synchronization Policies in C++

  http://www.ciaranmchale.com/gsp/
  Most uses of synchronization code in multi-threaded applications fall into a small number of high-level “usage patterns”, or what can be called generic synchronization policies (GSPs). This paper illustrates how the use of such GSPs simplify the writing of thread-safe classes. In addition, this paper presents a C++ class library that implements commonly-used GSPs.

• Introduction to Priority Inversion

  http://www.embedded.com/electronics-blogs/beginner-s-corner/4023947/Introduction-to-Priority-Inversion
  Gives an introduction to priority inversion and shows a pair of techniques to avoid them.

• It's (Not) All Been Done

  http://www.gotw.ca/publications/guest-ed-200609.htm
  Every decade or so there is a major revolution in the way software is developed. But, unlike the object and web revolutions, the concurrency revolution can be seen coming.

• It's Not Always Nice To Share

  http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/its-not-always-nice-to-share/217600495
  It isn't just languages that have poor support for thread local storage, but operating systems too

• Lock Options

  http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/lock-options/212201754
  Presents a solution to races and deadlocks based on a well-known deadlock-avoidance protocol and shows how it can be enforced by the compiler. It can be applied to programs in which the number of locks is fixed and known up front.

• Lock-Free Code: A False Sense of Security

  http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/lock-free-code-a-false-sense-of-security/210600279
  Writing lock-free code can confound anyone-even expert programmers, as Herb shows in this article.

• Lock-free Interprocess Communication

  http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/lock-free-interprocess-communication/189401457
  Interprocess communication is an essential component of modern software engineering. Often, lock-free IPC is accomplished via special processor commands. This article propose a communication type that requires only atomic writing of processor word from processor cache into main memory and atomic processor word reading from main memory into the processor register or processor cache.

• Maximize Locality, Minimize Contention

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/maximize-locality-minimize-contention/208200273
  Explains why in the concurrent world, locality is a first-order issue that trumps most other performance considerations. Now locality is no longer just about fitting well into cache and RAM, but to avoid scalability busters by keeping tightly coupled data physically close together and separately used data far, far apart.

• Measuring Parallel Performance: Optimizing a Concurrent Queue

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/measuring-parallel-performance-optimizin/212201163
  Shows different ways of how to write a fast, internally synchronized queue, one that callers can use without any explicit external locking or other synchronization, and compares the performance.

• Multi-threaded Algorithm Implementations

  http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/06/may-column-multithreaded-algor.html
  Explores effective uses of threads by looking at a multi-threaded implementation of the QuickSort algorithm and reports on situations where using threads will not help.

• Multi-threaded Debugging Techniques

  http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/multithreaded-debugging-techniques/199200938
  Describes a number of general purpose debugging techniques for multi-threaded applications.

• Multithreaded File I/O

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/multithreaded-file-io/220300055
  So far multithreaded file I/O is a under-researched field. Although its simple to measure, there is not much common knowledge about it. The measurements presented here show that multithreading can improve performance of file access directly, as well as indirectly by utilizing available cores to process the data read.

• Practical Lock-Free Buffers

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/practical-lock-free-buffers/219500200
  Looks at how lock-free programming avoids system failure by tolerating individual process failures.

• Prefer Futures to Baked-In "Async APIs"

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/prefer-futures-to-baked-in-async-apis/222301165
  Explains that it's important to separate "what" from "how" when designing concurrent APIs.

• Prefer Structured Lifetimes: Local, Nested, Bounded, Deterministic

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/prefer-structured-lifetimes-local-neste/221601309
  What's good for the function and the object is also good for the thread, the task, and the lock.

• Protothreads

  http://dunkels.com/adam/pt/
  Very lightweight stackless threads; give linear code execution for event-driven systems, designed to use little memory; library is pure C, no platform-specific Assembly; usable with or without OS. Open source, BSD-type license.

• Real-world Concurrency

  http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1454462
  Describes some key principles that will help mastering the "black art" of writing multithreaded code.

• RT++

  http://www.risc.jku.at/software/rt++/
  Higher order threads for C++; tutorial and reference manual.

• Sharing Is the Root of All Contention

  http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/sharing-is-the-root-of-all-contention/214100002
  Sharing requires waiting and overhead, and is a natural enemy of scalability. This article focuses on one important case, namely mutable (writable) shared objects in memory, which are an inherent bottleneck to scalability on multicore systems.

• Software and the Concurrency Revolution

  http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1095421
  Focuses on the implications of concurrency for software and its consequences for both programming languages and programmers. (Herb Sutter and James Larus)

• State Threads Library

  http://state-threads.sourceforge.net/
  Small application library for writing fast, highly scalable Internet programs on Unix-like platforms. Open source, MPL or GPL.

• The Free Lunch Is Over: A Fundamental Turn Toward Concurrency in Software

  http://www.gotw.ca/publications/concurrency-ddj.htm
  The biggest sea change in software development since the OO revolution is knocking at the door, and its name is Concurrency.

• The Many Faces of Deadlock

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/the-many-faces-of-deadlock/209900973
  Explains that deadlock can happen whenever there is a blocking (or waiting) cycle among concurrent tasks.

• The Pillars of Concurrency

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/the-pillars-of-concurrency/200001985
  This article makes the case that a consistent mental model is needed to talk about concurrency.

• Understanding Parallel Performance

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/understanding-parallel-performance/211800538
  Explains how to accurately analyze the real performance of parallel code and lists some basic considerations and common costs.

• Use Lock Hierarchies to Avoid Deadlock

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/use-lock-hierarchies-to-avoid-deadlock/204801163
  Explains how to use lock hierarchies to avoid deadlock by assigning each shared resource a level that corresponds to its architectural layer.

• Use Thread Pools Correctly: Keep Tasks Short and Nonblocking

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/use-thread-pools-correctly-keep-tasks-sh/216500409
  A thread pool hides a lot of details, but to use it effectively some awareness of some things a pool does under the covers is needed to avoid inadvertently hitting performance and correctness pitfalls.

• Use Threads Correctly = Isolation + Asynchronous Messages

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/use-threads-correctly-isolation-asynch/215900465
  Motivates and illustrate best practices for using threads - techniques that will make concurrent code easier to write correctly and to reason about with confidence.

• volatile - Multithreaded Programmer's Best Friend

  http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/volatile-the-multithreaded-programmers-b/184403766
  Discusses the usage of the volatile keyword in multithreaded C++ programs.

• Welcome to the Jungle

  http://herbsutter.com/welcome-to-the-jungle/
  Herb Sutter is looking at how mainstream hardware is becoming permanently parallel, heterogeneous, and distributed.

• What's New in Boost Threads?

  http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/whats-new-in-boost-threads/211600441
  The Boost.Thread library, which enables the use of multiple threads of execution with shared data in portable C++ code, has undergone some major changes.

• Writing Lock-Free Code: A Corrected Queue

  http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/writing-lock-free-code-a-corrected-queue/210604448
  Explores lock-free code by focusing on creating a lock-free queue.

Related Categories

• Home > Computers > Programming > Operating Systems
• Home > Computers > Programming > Languages > Concurrent

 

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