J.Wexler@edinburgh.ac.uk (04/11/89)
Concurrent programming in occam 2, by John Wexler, publ. Ellis Horwood,
ISBN 0-7548-0394-6, #29.95 (# means pounds sterling)
I urge you all to rush out and buy my book before Geraint Jones reviews it.
Better still, get your libraries to order several copies each!
"What," you say, "another book on occam? Is there no end to them?" No, there
isn't, apparently. "So what's special about this one?" Well, I'm glad you
asked me that. This book is aimed at competent practical programmers -
including those (e.g., engineers, scientists) whose job is not programming, but
who regularly write their own programs. If you work easily and happily in
FORTRAN, C or Pascal, and you feel no inclination to change your ideas, and you
are too busy to learn a lot of new theoretical stuff, but you want to use
concurrency/occam/transputers, then this is the book for you! If you are
teaching occam as a conversion course, or marketing transputer products to
customers who need conversion support, then this is the book to recommend.
The general approach is fairly discursive, with lots of small examples and
informal explanations. I have paid particular attention to difficulties and
misunderstandings where occam is unexpectedly different from other languages.
There is some guidance on "thinking about concurrency", and a number of examples
of standard ways to do things. I have tried to explain accurately the whole of
the occam 2 language as it is defined and implemented. The TDS is NOT covered,
nor placement/configuration tools.
The major sections of the book deal with:
- how to do in occam the things that you do in sequential languages:
data types, expressions, declarations, processes, constructions, etc;
- the mechanisms of concurrency: PAR, channels, protocols, ALT, and so on;
- sensible ways to use concurrency;
- occam on the transputers;
- writing for multiple processors;
- and a chapter of slightly larger examples.
Also it has one of Ellis Horwood's peculiar pictures on the cover.