Initial Remarks on Threads

• Java is remarkable for threads being built into the language

• Threads are "light-weight" processes (unlike UNIX processes), which communicate by a combination of shared memory and message passing

  • This communication mechanism is employed naturally by Java

• Java threads are limited and for those coming from an HPCC background, we note Java threads have no immediate support for some key parallel computing concepts (see work of Chandy at Caltech) such as distributed memory (threads running in separate operating system instances)

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