Book Image

Learn Java with Projects

By : Dr. Seán Kennedy, Maaike van Putten
5 (3)
Book Image

Learn Java with Projects

5 (3)
By: Dr. Seán Kennedy, Maaike van Putten

Overview of this book

Learn Java with Projects stands out in the world of Java guides; while some books skim the surface and others get lost in too much detail, this one finds a nice middle ground. You’ll begin by exploring the fundamentals of Java, from its primitive data types through to loops and arrays. Next, you’ll move on to object-oriented programming (OOP), where you’ll get to grips with key topics such as classes, objects, encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, interfaces, and more. The chapters are designed in a way that focuses on topics that really matter in real-life work situations. No extra fluff here, so that you get more time to spend on the basics and form a solid foundation. As you make progress, you’ll learn advanced topics including generics, collections, lambda expressions, streams and concurrency. This book doesn't just talk about theory—it shows you how things work with little projects, which eventually add up to one big project that brings it all together. By the end of this Java book, you’ll have sound practical knowledge of Java and a helpful guide to walk you through the important parts of Java.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
1
Part 1: Java Fundamentals
9
Part 2: Object-Oriented Programming
15
Part 3: Advanced Topics

The Lock interface

Let’s talk about the Lock interface. This is an alternative to the synchronized keyword for handling concurrency control. While synchronized helps us achieve thread safety, it also introduces some drawbacks:

  • Threads are blocked while waiting for a lock, potentially wasting processing time
  • There’s no mechanism to check whether a lock is available or to time out if a lock is held for too long

If you need to overcome these limitations, you can use the built-in Lock interface with implementations that offer more control over synchronization. We will discuss one of the most common implementations: ReentrantLock.

ReentrantLock

The ReentrantLock class is a popular implementation of the Lock interface. ReentrantLock is used to protect a section of code similar to synchronized but provides additional features through its methods:

  • lock(): This method locks the lock
  • unlock(): This method releases the lock
  • tryLock(): This...