
                             READING LIST
                             ------------

Note: YOU DO NOT NEED TO BUY A BOOK to follow the parallel computing
component in this unit.  However, if you want another point of view or
just want to learn some more, you may care to inspect the following books.
For coping with this course, none of these books are essential:

    o INMOS Ltd: `Occam2.1 Reference Manual';
      http://wotug.ukc.ac.uk/parallel/occam/documentation/oc21refman.ps.gz

This is the basic reference text.  Pure syntax and semantics - no teaching.

    o R. Pountain and D. May: `A Tutorial Introduction to Occam2 Programming';
      BSP Professional Books (ISBN 0-632-01847-X); 1987.

This is the `Bible'.  Very readable - but still primarily syntax and semantics.
Not much in the way of deeper insights as to how to really design parallel
systems - but an excellent first book.

    o K. C. Bowler et al.: `An Introduction to Occam2 Programming';
      Chartwell-Bratt (ISBN 0-86-238-137-1); 1987.

OK - but fairly basic stuff.  Not all completely relevant though!

    o A. Burns: `Programming in Occam2';
      Addison-Wesley (ISBN 0-201-17371-9); 1988.

Good stuff.  Teaching to a higher level than the above.  Ignore the chapter
comparing Ada and occam2.  Look out for some not-very-well-flagged `extensions'
to occam2 in the text.  These were proposed by the author but never taken up.

    o G. Jones: `Programming in Occam2';
      Prentice-Hall (ISBN 0-13-729773-4); 1987.
      http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oucl/work/geraint.jones/publications/book/Pio2/

First class material - strong stuff but hardly any pictures!!  But really
deep insights - aimed at those who are comfortable with fairly abstract
reasoning (i.e. mathematicians and logicians).

    o J. Kerridge: `Occam Programming - a Practical Approach';
      Blackwell Scientific Publications (ISBN 0-632-01659-0); 1987.

First class material - aimed at everyone.  A really good book BUT ONLY DEALS
with occam - not occam2.  As such, the language syntax is slightly different
and there are no data-types.  The ideas are really well presented though.

    o J. Galletly: `Occam2';
      Pitman (ISBN 0-273-03067-1); 1990.

An excellent new book ... nice big font and lots of pictures ... very
good for the basic information but not much higher-level stuff.

    o J. Galletly: `Occam2 (including occam2.1);
      UCL Press (ISBN 1-85728-362-7); 1996);

A 2nd. edition to the above, updated to include the extended language.
All good stuff.

BEWARE OF OTHER BOOKS - there are some real turkeys out there!  I am
happy to discuss them person-to-person.

Peter Welch.
