Customer Reviews

Programming with Hyper-Threading Technology: How to Write Multithreaded Software for Intel IA-32 Processors (Engineer to Engineer series)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book has nothing to do with hyperthreading whatsoever -- nor, as far as I can see, is it particularly specific to Intel processors. The real title would read something like "A fleet-footed and largely superfluous overview of the basics of multithreading using Windows and Unix API". Had _that_ been the title, I would have given this book three stars -- it's superfluous, but that aside, OK. But the title is a complete lie, I'm sure intended to make the book look enticing (especially coming from Intel Press, where you'd expect (1) a book to have something to do with their hardware, and (2) an opportunity to take good info from "the horse's mouth" as it were). None of it here: one star (as the lowest I can give).

A very readable introduction to multi-threading on Windows, PThreads and OpenMP, with a slant towards their use on hyper-threading processors. This book isn't a reference work for any of the three methods, and it stops short on some topics where it would be nice for it to go a bit further, but it is a good introduction to all three platforms and general threading matters, and is far more readable than some other multi-threading books which are either written by people who cannot write, or are written by academics with no experience of writing professional quality code. So all in all, a very good place to start but realise that you will need reference material for the APIs too.

About the only source I have seen that 1) explains the details of HT, 2) relates HT to threading and discusses how to effectively use the latter with HT, and 3) how to optimize code intended for HT. The article the previous reviewer refers to touches only on the first point of these points. Optimization for HT is discussed only in this book that I know of.

Not much about HT tech even it is by INTEL Press. Just VERY basic contents related to parallel programming.

The article on Intel Journal is much better and publicly available.

Save your money.