Operating Systems Programming: The SR Programming Language

Designed to give students experience writing programs in a concurrent programming language, this text shows how to use the SR language to write programs that use semaphores, monitors, message passing, remote procedure calls, and the rendezvous for an operating systems course. The language can also be used for parallel computing in a shared-memory multiprocessor or a distributed memory cluster environment. The pedagogical orientation of the text helps students understand concepts more clearly; it describes the SR language, presents some examples of SR programs, and provides some programming assignments in the form of open student laboratories. Since most concepts and terms are defined, it can be used as the sole text in an introductory concurrent programming course. A unique feature of the text is that it can also be used in conjunction with four of the standard operating systems texts on the market today. Its material is keyed to the following major textbooks:
(1) Deitel: An Introduction to Operating Systems, 2/E (Addison-Wesley)
(2) Silberschatz & Galvin: Operating Systems Concepts, 4/E (Addison-Wesley)
(3) Stallings: Computer Organization and Architecture, 3E (Prentice Hall)
, and (4) Tannenbaum: Modern Operating Systems (Prentice Hall).
The relevant sections of these texts for the major concepts, such as semaphores and monitors, are indicated. The intended audience for this text is undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in concurrent programming and operating systems courses. It can also be used in a full-semester follow-on course to operating systems to provide more extensive programming experince. Prerequisites for students are knowledge of a high-level programming language such as C or Pascal, and operating systems concepts.

Stephen J. Hartley is Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA.