This course is part of the Parallel, Concurrent, and Distributed Programming in Java Specialization

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635 ratings

Vivek Sarkar

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Parallel, Concurrent, and Distributed Programming in Java SpecializationRice University

About this Course

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This course teaches learners (industry professionals and students) the fundamental concepts of concurrent programming in the context of Java 8.   Concurrent programming enables developers to efficiently and correctly mediate the use of shared resources in parallel programs.  By the end of this course, you will learn how to use basic concurrency constructs in Java such as threads, locks, critical sections, atomic variables, isolation, actors, optimistic concurrency and concurrent collections, as well as their theoretical foundations (e.g., progress guarantees, deadlock, livelock, starvation, linearizability).
Why take this course?

•	It is important for you to be aware of the theoretical foundations of concurrency to avoid common but subtle programming errors. 
•	Java 8 has modernized many of the concurrency constructs since the early days of threads and locks.
•	During the course, you will have online access to the instructor and mentors to get individualized answers to your questions posted on the forums.
•	Each of the four modules in the course includes an assigned mini-project that will provide you with the necessary hands-on experience to use the concepts learned in the course on your own, after the course ends.

The desired learning outcomes of this course are as follows:

•	Concurrency theory: progress guarantees, deadlock, livelock, starvation, linearizability
•	Use of threads and structured/unstructured locks in Java
•	Atomic variables and isolation
•	Optimistic concurrency and concurrent collections in Java (e.g., concurrent queues, concurrent  hashmaps)
•	Actor model in Java

Mastery of these concepts will enable you to immediately apply them in the context of concurrent Java programs, and will also help you master other concurrent programming system that you may encounter in the future  (e.g., POSIX threads, .NET threads).

Flexible deadlines

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Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

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Course 2 of 3 in the

Parallel, Concurrent, and Distributed Programming in Java Specialization

Intermediate Level

Approx. 19 hours to complete

English

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Skills you will gain

Concurrency (Computer Science)
Actor Model
Optimistic Concurrency Control
Java Concurrency

Flexible deadlines

Reset deadlines in accordance to your schedule.

Shareable Certificate

Earn a Certificate upon completion

100% online

Start instantly and learn at your own schedule.

Course 2 of 3 in the

Parallel, Concurrent, and Distributed Programming in Java Specialization

Intermediate Level

Approx. 19 hours to complete

English

Could your company benefit from training employees on in-demand skills?

Try Coursera for Business

Instructor

Instructor rating

4.69/5 (49 Ratings)

Vivek Sarkar

Professor

Department of Computer Science

53,170 Learners

3 Courses

Offered by

Rice University

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Syllabus - What you will learn from this course

Content Rating94%(2,102 ratings)

Week

Week 1

1 hour to complete

Welcome to the Course!

1 hour to complete

1 video (Total 1 min), 5 readings, 1 quiz

5 hours to complete

Threads and Locks

In this module, we will learn about threads and locks, which have served as primitive building blocks for concurrent programming for over five decades. All computing platforms today include some form of support for threads and locks, and make them available for use by developers in a wide range of programming languages. We will learn how threads can be created, joined, and synchronized using structured (e.g., synchronized statements/methods) and unstructured (e.g., java.util.concurrent libraries) locks in Java. We will also learn about new classes of bugs that can arise when concurrent programs need to access shared resources. These bugs are referred to as violations of liveness/progress guarantees, and include deadlock, livelock, and starvation. We will conclude this module by studying different solutions to the classical "Dining Philosophers" problem, and use these solutions to illustrate instances of deadlock, livelock and starvation.

5 hours to complete

6 videos (Total 41 min), 6 readings, 2 quizzes

Week

Week 2

4 hours to complete

Critical Sections and Isolation

In this module, we will learn different approaches to coordinating accesses to shared resources without encountering the deadlock or livelock bugs studied earlier. Critical/isolated sections are higher-level concurrent programming constructs (relative to locks) that simplify the implementation of mutual exclusion by guaranteeing the absence of deadlocks and livelocks. Object-based isolation relaxes the constraints imposed by critical sections by allowing mutual exclusion to be specified on a per-object basis, as illustrated in the Spanning Tree example. Java's atomic variables represent an important, but restricted, case of object-based isolation that is implemented efficiently on all hardware platforms. Finally, we will learn how object-based isolation can be further relaxed with read/write access modes.

4 hours to complete

6 videos (Total 36 min), 6 readings, 2 quizzes

6 videos

2.1 Critical Sections6m

2.2 Object Based Isolation (Monitors)7m

2.3 Concurrent Spanning Tree Algorithm6m

2.4 Atomic Variables6m

2.5 Read, Write Isolation5m

Demonstration: Global and Object-Based Isolation3m

6 readings

2.1 Lecture Summary10m

2.2 Lecture Summary10m

2.3 Lecture Summary10m

2.4 Lecture Summary10m

2.5 Lecture Summary10m

Mini Project 2: Global and Object-Based Isolation10m

1 practice exercise

Module 2 Quiz33m

20 minutes to complete

Talking to Two Sigma: Using it in the Field

20 minutes to complete

2 videos (Total 10 min), 1 reading

Week

Week 3

4 hours to complete

Actors

In this module, we will learn another high-level approach to concurrent programming called the "Actor" model. A major difference between the Actor model and the Isolated Sections model is that there are no data races possible in the Actor model because it does not allow for any form of shared variables. However, as in all concurrent programming models, higher-level forms of nondeterminism are still possible in the Actor model due to an inherent asynchrony in the order in which messages may be delivered. We will study multiple examples of concurrency using the Actor model, including the classical Sieve of Eratosthenes algorithm to generate prime numbers, as well as producer-consumer patterns with both unbounded and bounded buffers.

4 hours to complete

6 videos (Total 29 min), 6 readings, 2 quizzes

6 videos

3.1 Actors5m

3.2 Actor Examples6m

3.3 Sieve of Eratosthenes Algorithm5m

3.4 Producer-Consumer Problem4m

3.5 Bounded Buffer Problem3m

Demonstration: Sieve of Eratosthenes Using Actor Parallelism3m

6 readings

3.1 Lecture Summary10m

3.2 Lecture Summary10m

3.3 Lecture Summary10m

3.4 Lecture Summary10m

3.5 Lecture Summary10m

Mini Project 3: Sieve of Eratosthenes Using Actor Parallelism10m

1 practice exercise

Module 3 Quiz30m

Week

Week 4

4 hours to complete

Concurrent Data Structures

In this module, we will study Concurrent Data Structures, which form an essential software layer in all multithreaded programming systems. First, we will learn about Optimistic Concurrency, an important multithreaded pattern in which two threads can "optimistically" make progress on their assigned work without worrying about mutual conflicts, and only checking for conflicts before "committing" the results of their work. We will then study the widely-used Concurrent Queue data structure. Even though the APIs for using concurrent queues are very simple, their implementations using the Optimistic Concurrency model can be complex and error-prone. To that end, we will also learn the formal notion of Linearizability to better understand correctness requirements for concurrent data structures. We will then study Concurrent Hash Maps, another widely-used concurrent data structure. Finally, we discuss a concurrent algorithm for finding a Minimum Spanning Tree of an undirected graph, an algorithm that relies on the use of Concurrent Data Structures under the covers.

4 hours to complete

6 videos (Total 38 min), 7 readings, 2 quizzes

6 videos

4.1 Optimistic Concurrency6m

4.2 Concurrent Queue5m

4.3 Linearizability6m

4.4 Concurrent Hash Map5m

4.5 Concurrent Minimum Spanning Tree Algorithm7m

Demonstration: Parallelization of Boruvka's Minimum Spanning Tree Algorithm7m

7 readings

4.1 Lecture Summary10m

4.2 Lecture Summary10m

4.3 Lecture Summary10m

4.4 Lecture Summary10m

4.5 Lecture Summary10m

Mini Project 4: Parallelization of Boruvka's Minimum Spanning Tree Algorithm10m

Exit Survey10m

1 practice exercise

Module 4 Quiz30m

15 minutes to complete

Continue Your Journey with the Specialization "Parallel, Concurrent, and Distributed Programming in Java"

15 minutes to complete

2 videos (Total 13 min), 1 reading

Reviews

4.5

108 reviews

5 stars
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4 stars
25.19%
3 stars
5.51%
2 stars
1.10%
1 star
1.57%

TOP REVIEWS FROM CONCURRENT PROGRAMMING IN JAVA

by CCApr 17, 2022

As a course for introduction it is good. But it mentioned very little of how we implement all these concept like isolation and actors. I wanna see more of it.

by MMJun 26, 2021

The most challenging part was to pass the miniproject_4. I made some changes in the condition to get the passing score. Thank you!

by PBNov 23, 2020

Amazing course. Especially for those who want to really understand the foundations behind multithreading and concurrency in Java. As always, Professor Sarkar is brilliant!

by AAFeb 1, 2020

Awesome course, it nudges students in right directions, provides them with solid fundamentals and encourages them to deep dive more into topics. Thanks a lot!

View all reviews

About the Parallel, Concurrent, and Distributed Programming in Java Specialization

Parallel, concurrent, and distributed programming underlies software in multiple domains, ranging from biomedical research to financial services. This specialization is intended for anyone with a basic knowledge of sequential programming in Java, who is motivated to learn how to write parallel, concurrent and distributed programs. Through a collection of three courses (which may be taken in any order or separately), you will learn foundational topics in Parallelism, Concurrency, and Distribution. These courses will prepare you for multithreaded and distributed programming for a wide range of computer platforms, from mobile devices to cloud computing servers.

To see an overview video for this Specialization, click here! For an interview with two early-career software engineers on the relevance of parallel computing to their jobs, click here. Acknowledgments The instructor, Prof. Vivek Sarkar, would like to thank Dr. Max Grossman for his contributions to the mini-projects and other course material, Dr. Zoran Budimlic for his contributions to the quizzes, Dr. Max Grossman and Dr. Shams Imam for their contributions to the pedagogic PCDP library used in some of the mini-projects, and all members of the Rice Online team who contributed to the development of the course content (including Martin Calvi, Annette Howe, Seth Tyger, and Chong Zhou).

Parallel, Concurrent, and Distributed Programming in Java

Frequently Asked Questions

When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?
Access to lectures and assignments depends on your type of enrollment. If you take a course in audit mode, you will be able to see most course materials for free. To access graded assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience, during or after your audit. If you don't see the audit option:
The course may not offer an audit option. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid.
The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.
What will I get if I subscribe to this Specialization?
When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.
Is financial aid available?
Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.

More questions? Visit the Learner Help Center.

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Concurrent Programming in Java

About this Course

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