Concurrent urban legends

This discussion addresses a number of urban legends about concurrency in an attempt to separate the myth from the fact. These legends are as follows: 1 concurrent = parallel; 2 coroutining = concurrency; 3 synchronization = mutual exclusion; 4 Dekker < Peterson; 5 concurrency = library; 6 inheritance anomaly = major concurrency problem; 7 signalling = hints; 8 spurious wakeup = efficiency. Identifying and understanding the fundamental concepts underlying concurrency is essential to the field. Equally important is not to confuse sequential and concurrent concepts. Finally, approaches based solely on efficiency are insufficient to justify a weak or difficult to use concurrent concept or construct. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.