Multithreaded Programming With Pthreads

The authors of this book, in addition to their knowledge of threads, also know how to teach. The only shortcoming I could point out is that certain topics are treated shallowly, while less important topics are explained with too much detail.What's really interesting about the book is the authors' ``don't do that'' style. Another reviewer found this style to be bad. I found it highly helpful. Instead of presenting a single solution for a problem (``The One and Only True Solution''), and leaving the reader wondering about alternative solutions, they go on to explain what's wrong with these other solutions. People learn by making mistakes, and the authors point out lots of mistakes that can be avoided. This is an invaluable feature, not a bug.

This book has all of the information from the "Threads Primer" book and more. It covers the topic very well and if this was the only book you read you'd be fine. I like the Butenhof threads book just a bit better because the programming examples there were much better than the small code fragments presented in this book.