Concurrent Programming using Modern Computer Languages

Twin Cities SIGAda presents:

E. Wayne Donaho and Paul Stachour

Concurrent Programming using Modern Computer Languages

Get a FREE Ada CDROM. See details following meeting announcement.

7:00 .. 9:00p.m., Thursday, May 20, 1999,
University of St. Thomas, Science Building Room 275,
St. Paul Campus, corner of Cretin and Grand Avenue.
(detailed directions below)

The topic is Concurency in Modern Programming Languages,
in particular C/C++, Java, and Ada.

Todays computer programs are no longer the simple sequential programs
that we learned in school.  Programs are expected to perform
tasks (often more than one task) while waiting for input from the
user. The fact that concurrency must be handled in our programs
forces programers to use more complex tools to handle these programs.

Issues that must be dealt with include:

How to initiate a tasking system
How to syncronize multiple tasks
How two tasks communicate information
How a multiple task program shuts down in an orderly fashion
Is being thread-safe and exception-safe easy or hard?
Examples from the 3 languages.


To handle this problem modern languages give us tools which allow us
to deal with these problems in a cost effective manner.  We will
review the tools that each of three modern computer languges ( C/C++,
Java and Ada ) give programmers to deal with the problems introduced
by concurrency.

About the Speakers:

Wayne Donaho is freelancing building Database Driven Web sites for
small businesses.  Wayne has used Ada since the mid 1980's, including
building large multi-task, multicomputer systems at Unisys (now
Lockheed-Martin).  Wayne is teaching about Ada95 features at a local
company which builds higly reliable software.

Paul Stachour is the Software Quality Manager at a local company
building software for the internet. Paul has been interested in
concurrency issues since he was introduced to BSAM IO in 1968.  He
has written concurrent programs in PL/I, C, and Ada.  He has observed
that doing concurrency "outside of the language" does not seem to
scale, while doing it "inside the language" makes it easy and
reliable.  Paul has been interested in what makes software "quality
software" ever since.  In particular, he is interested in what
languages, features, tools, and processes prevent defects. Paul is
the current president of TCSIGAda.

Directions to St. Thomas:

Take I94 to the Cretin Avenue exit in St.Paul.  Turn south off the
exit, towards the Mississippi River.  There are traffic lights at
Marshal and Summit Avenues.  The first street after Summit is Grand,
turn right on Grand, it becomes the road into the parking lot.  If
you do not have a St. Thomas parking sticker, you will need to park
at a parking meter.  OSS is the building immediately to the north and
east of the parking meters.  275 is on the second floor; take the
stairway in the SW corner of the building to the 2nd floor, then look
for posted directions to the room.  Please contact Paul Stachour if
you need additional directions.

Free Offer:

The first two individuals to respond to Mark Glewwe, publicity,
[log in to unmask] with their name and intention to attend this May
20th TCSIGAda meeting, and show up at the meeting, will win a free
Walnut Creek Ada 2-CDROM, with a listed value of $35.  This offer is
available to anyone who has *not* previously won a prize at a
TCSIGAda meeting.

For information about TCACMSIGAda, call (612)-884-5977 or visit
 www.tcsigada.org

A more nicely formatted version of this announcement is found at
   www.tcsigada.org/meeting/may99mtg.htm