Introduction to Concurrent Programming in C

The book Introduction to Concurrent Programming in C is aimed at readers who are proficient with normal (sequential) programming, but that do not yet have (much) experience with concurrent programming. As such, the book starts by higlighting the fundamental differences between the sequential and the concurrent execution models. At first glance, it seems easy to extend a sequential program into a concurrent program, we just have to add a thread or two! However, it turns out that the simple decision to allow multiple threads expose many subtle details of both the compiler and the hardware that are normally hidden from view.

After a thorough description of the execution model, the book moves on to introduce synchronization primitives (semaphores, locks, and condition variables) and details how they can be used to write correct concurrent programs. The book focuses on building a correct mental model of how programs execute in a concurrent system, one that can be later used to reason about whether or not some program is correct. As such, the book focuses more on an informal model that can be used as a tool, rather than formal proofs.

To help the reader build such a model, the book relies heavily on visualizations in Progvis. Both in examples to illustrate the concepts, but also for exercises. The exercises are furthermore constructed so that it is possible to use Progvis' model checker to verify solutions to the problems.

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