single.dvi
C
A Dialogue on Monitors
Professor: So it’s you again, huh?
Student: I bet you are getting quite tired by now, being so, well you know, old?
Not that 50 years old is that old, really.
Professor: I’m not 50! I’ve just turned 40, actually. But goodness, I guess to
you, being 20-something …
Student: … 19, actually …
Professor: (ugh) … yes, 19, whatever, I guess 40 and 50 seem kind of similar.
But trust me, they’re not. At least, that’s what my 50-year old friends tell me.
Student: Anyhow …
Professor: Ah yes! What are we talking about again?
Student: Monitors. Not that I know what a monitor is, except for some kind of
old-fashioned name for the computer display sitting in front of me.
Professor: Yes, this is a whole different type of thing. It’s an old concurrency
primitive, designed as a way to incorporate locking automatically into object-
oriented programs.
Student: Why not include it in the section on concurrency then?
Professor: Well, most of the book is about C programming and the POSIX
threads libraries, where there are no monitors, so there’s that. But there are some
historical reasons to at least include the information on the topic, so here it is, I
guess.
Student: Ah, history. That’s for old people, like you, right?
Professor: (glares)
Student: Oh take it easy. I kid!
Professor: I can’t wait until you take the final exam…
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