Nathan Tippy: Concurrent or multi-threaded software is not a new technology but its importance has been accelerating. This is primarily due to the low cost of multi-core CPUs that are becoming common in even the most basic machines. This trend is expected to continue as hardware manufacturers, following Moore's law, cram greater numbers of cores onto a single die at ever lower costs.
In the past older applications have taken advantage of faster hardware for improved performance, thus extending their functional life. In the future this will be less common because CPUs are not expected to be significantly faster; instead they will be doing more in parallel.
There is no better feeling for a developer than knowing that his/her software has withstood the test of time. This is rare, of course, because technology and methodologies don't remain static but continue to progress with the relentless march of time.
It is not advisable to rewrite everything to make use of concurrent algorithms. However, finding places where it makes sense to add multi-threading and "use the right tool for the job" may greatly increase application longevity.
It would require a short course to do justice to the topic of concurrent Java development so the remainder of this brief will focus on demonstrating a few of the features with the hope that the reader will continue further study on his/her own.
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