Java Threads, Second Edition

Summary

In this chapter, we introduced the synchronized keyword of the Java language. This keyword allows us to synchronize methods and blocks of code.

We’ve also developed a synchronization primitive of our own: the BusyFlag, which allows us to lock objects across methods and to acquire and release the lock at will based on external events. These features are not available with Java’s synchronized keyword, but they are useful in many situations.

This concludes our first look at synchronization. As you can tell, it is one of the most important aspects of threaded programming. Without these techniques, we would not be able to share data correctly between the threads that we create. While these techniques are good enough for many of the programs we will be creating, we introduce other techniques in the next chapter.