Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1 Introduction to Threads This is a book about using threads in the Java programming language and the Java virtual machine. The topic of threads is very important in Java—so important that many features of the threading system are built into the Java language itself while other features of the threading system are required by the Java virtual machine. Threading is an integral part of using Java. The concept of threads is not a new one: for some time, many operating systems have had libraries that provide the C programmer a mechanism to create threads. Other languages, such as Ada, have support for threads embedded into the lan- guage, much as support for threads is built into the Java language. Nonetheless, until Java came along, the topic of threads was usually considered a peripheral program- ming topic, one that was only needed in special programming cases. With
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