[Distributed_systems] what are you teaching currently?

[Kitlei Róbert]

> Thank you all, it's nice to hear from you Robi, and also from the 
> others! :)
>
> I added a second sheet in the spreadsheet for progress summaries and 
> filled it up with your info. Based on this, it seems to me that 
> Ferenc, Péter, Robi, and me will be in sync by the end of next week. 
> (Péter, feel free to slow down a bit :)) Robi's Parhuzamossag.java has 
> mutual exclusion (synchronized block), but no fairness. My week 6 
> handout had fairness (CountDownLatch) but no mutual exclusion.


Usually, there is not enough time to discuss java.util.concurrent stuff 
in detail throughout this course. They are better suited to the 
Concurrent Programming course anyway. I suggest that we make it clear to 
the students that data structures and tools from that package, if 
covered at all, are definitely not mandatory and not needed for the exams.


The four usual topics for the exam are: server/client architecture, 
threading with synchronisation, RMI and database handling. The first two 
tend to appear in the midterm assignment.


One more thing: testing concurrent programs properly is usually very 
hard, and at this level, not worth the effort. Why do you have JUnit in 
your Teams files?