Chapter 7. Monitors
Introduction
The semaphore was introduced to provide a synchronization primitive that does not require busy waiting. Using semaphores we have given solutions to common concurrent programming problems. However, the semaphore is a low-level primitive because it is unstructured. If we were to build a large system using semaphores alone, the responsibility for the correct use of the semaphores would be diffused among all the implementers of the system. If one of them forgets to call signal(S) after a critical section, the program can deadlock and the cause of the failure will be difficult to isolate.
Monitors provide a structured concurrent programming primitive that concentrates the responsibility for correctness into modules. Monitors ...
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