Concurrent and Real-Time Programming in Ada

Ada is the only ISO-standard, object-oriented, concurrent, real-time programming language. It is intended for use in large, long-lived applications where reliability and efficiency are essential, particularly real-time and embedded systems. In this book, Alan Burns and Andy Wellings give a thorough, self-contained account of how the Ada tasking model can be used to construct a wide range of concurrent and real-time systems. This is the only book that focuses on an in-depth discussion of the Ada tasking model. Following on from the authors' earlier title Concurrency in Ada, this book brings the discussion up to date to include the new Ada 2005 language and the recent advances in real-time programming techniques. It will be of value to software professionals and advanced students of programming alike: indeed every Ada programmer will find it essential reading and a primary reference work that will sit alongside the language reference manual.

1. Introduction; 2. The nature and uses of concurrent programming; 3. Inter-process communication; 4. Task types and objects; 5. The rendezvous; 6. The select statement and the rendezvous; 7. Protected objects and data-oriented communication; 8. Avoidance synchronisation and the requeue facility; 9. Exceptions, abort and asynchronous transfer of control; 10. Object-oriented programming and tasking; 11. Concurrency utilities; 12. Tasking and systems programming; 13. Scheduling real-time systems - fixed priority dispatching; 14. Scheduling real-time systems - other dispatching facilities; 15. Timing events and execution time control; 16. Real-time utilities; 17. Restrictions, metrics and the ravenscar profile; 18. Conclusion; References; Index.

This is the only book that focuses on an in-depth discussion of the Ada tasking model. Following from the authors' earlier title Concurrency in Ada, this book discusses both the new Ada 2005 language and the recent advances in real-time programming technique.

Alan Burns is a Professor in Computer Science and the Head of the Computer Science Department at the University of York. His research activities have covered a number of aspects of real-time and safety critical systems including the assessment of languages for use in the real-time safety critical domain, distributed operating systems, the formal specification of scheduling algorithms and implementation strategies, and the design of dependable user interfaces to safety critical applications. His teaching activities include courses in Operating Systems, Scheduling and Real-time Systems. He has authored over 350 papers and reports and 8 books, including Real-time Systems and Programming Languages, 3rd edition and Concurrency in Ada, 2nd edition.
Andy Wellings is a Professor of Real-Time Systems in the Computer Science Department at University of York. He is interested in most aspects of the design and implementation of real-time dependable computer systems and, in particular, real-time programming languages and operating systems. He is European Editor-in-Chief for the Computer Science journal Software-Practice and Experience and a member of the International Expert Groups currently developing extensions to the Java platform for real-time, safety critical and distributed programming. He has authored over 200 papers and several books, including Real-time Systems and Programming Languages, 3rd edition and Concurrency in Ada, 2nd edition.