Technologists are, by their vocational commitment to new things, manufacturers and early adopters of language. Our commitment to language is however generally one of casual incompetence. The artifact being built, or fixed, is the focus of our attention, and the language referring to it is an after thought for the tormenting of poets, grammarians and the marketing department. Perhaps that’s as it should be, but it’s still a pleasure to read a book like Java Concurrency In Practice, which has a mastery of both language and its topic.

JCIP has already been well reviewed on its technical merits. [NB: These notes are also from 2006 and written about the first edition.] In summary, it’s a great reference. As the jacket copy points out, concurrency in software is both difficult to deal with and of renewed importance. Problems like these put stress not only on software artifacts being developed, but the context in which that artifact is built and used, like collaboration in its construction, or human and computer interfaces, or eventual maintenance. Java Concurrency In Practice also has some insights into this, but it’s not foregrounded, and seems worth exploring.

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