Module 19 Study Guide

Learning Objectives

• Distinguish between instruction-level, statement-level, unit-level, and program-level concurrency
• Summarize the history of multiprocessor architectures (at an overview level)
• Distinguish between physical and logical concurrency
• State reasons for using concurrency
• Explain fundamental terms in concurrency, including lightweight task(thread), and heavyweight task (process)
• Distinguish cooperation from competition synchronization
• Explain the terms race condition, liveness, and deadlock
• Explain how task scheduling works
• Explain what a semaphore is and how it can be used to provide synchronization
• State the advantages and disadvantages of semaphores
• Explain what a monitor is and why it is superior to a semaphore
• Explain and contrast different approaches to error handling
• State advantages of including exception handling in a programming language
• Contrast generic GOTO statements with formal exception handling
• Explain how event handling is similar to error handling
• Contrast event loops and the observer pattern for implementing events

Resources

• CPL 13-14
• Slides: Lam

Lab

Please complete the lab for this week: concurrency and error handling

Deliverables

The test for this module will take place in class on Friday. You will have an opportunity to re-take a different version of the same test next week. If you choose to do the re-take, your grade for this module will be the higher of the two scores.