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%T Fine\-grain Concurrency
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%A Tony Hoare
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%E Alistair A. McEwan, Steve Schneider, Wilson Ifill, Peter H. Welch
%B Communicating Process Architectures 2007
%X I have been interested in concurrent programming since about
1963, when
its associated problems contributed to the
failure of the largest software project that I have managed.
When I moved to an academic career in 1968, I hoped that I
could find a solution to the problems by my research. Quite
quickly I decided to concentrate on coarse\-grained
concurrency, which does not allow concurrent processes to
share main memory. The only interaction between processes is
confined to explicit input and output commands. This
simplification led eventually to the exploration of the
theory of Communicating Sequential Processes.
Since
joining Microsoft Research in 1999, I have plucked up
courage at last to
look at fine\-grain concurrency,
involving threads which interleave their access to main
memory at the fine granularity of single instruction
execution. By combining the merits of a number of different
theories of concurrency, one can paint a relatively simple
picture of a theory for the correct design of concurrent
systems. Indeed, pictures are a great help in conveying the
basic understanding. This paper presents some on\-going
directions of research that I have been pursuing with
colleagues in Cambridge &\[sh]8211; both at Microsoft
Research and in the University Computing Laboratory.