On 03-Aug-01 chris.danx wrote:
> 
> "simon broadhead" <sabroadhead@yahoo.com> wrote in message
...
>> I have bean asked to examine the synchronization mechanism
>> (rendez-vous) which is promoted by ADA and contrast this to the
>> Dijkstra's (p/v) wait and signal mechanism.

Read "Concepts and Notations for Concurrent Programming" from Gregory R. Andrews
and Fred B. Schneider (Computing Surveys, Vol 15, No. 1, March 1983). It�s a
very good and condensed overview of synchronization problems and the different
approaches used in several programming languages and proposals to solve these.

The article is from 1983 and contains only information about the old Ada
standard. Ada today has the same rendezvous concept as in 83 -- but there is
an additional synchronization concept in the present standard: the Protected
Type. (It fits into the article at the place where Hoare�s "conditional wait"
and "Kessels� proposal" are discussed.)

Wilhelm