Re: Teaching Concurrency

[pattis@cs.washington.edu (Richard Pattis)]

> ..in ACM SIGAda Ada Letters. The article discusses programming assignments
> where concurrent tasks are used for things like sorting numbers, solving 
> equations, finding primes, etc.
> 
> Although these programming assignments evidently had some valuable lessons
> on multi-tasking, I feel that they may also inadventantly teach a
> less desirable lesson: that it is OK to use concurrent tasks for things 
> that could be done much more simply with subroutines. 
> ...
> I have seen large (and expensive!) systems crippled by inappropriate use
> of tasking, and I hope the the computer science graduates of the future
> will understand not only HOW to use multi-tasking, but WHEN.
> 
> Mark Shepherd
> agcsun!marks@boulder.colorado.edu


OK, so this begs the question: what is the "smallest" assignment that can
use concurrency fruitfully. I would like to teach a bit about tasking in
one of my classes, but I don't want students to get "wrong" ideas from the
example I use.  Anyone out there have such an assignment? Is there some prime
example out there of a good use of multi-tasking that is amenable to
classroom instruction?

Rich Pattis
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