Principles and Applications of Distributed Computing

Author: Gu Tiecheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: The key features of this book are:
· It aims to introduce undergraduate students to the principles of distributed computing, which were originally only taught to graduate students.
· It primarily focuses on the upper layers of network computing architecture, specifically the abstraction and paradigms of computing.
· It includes both conceptual and practical content, using code examples and exercises to illustrate and reinforce the concepts.
· It is written as a textbook, employing a narrative style suitable for academic environments, with charts to visually explain the content. Each chapter concludes with exercises and references for further study.
· It is designed for the "learn-by-doing" teaching model: program examples are used to reinforce recently discussed topics, and experimental activities are integrated into the exercises at the end of each chapter.
· The author also provides supplementary teaching materials, including slides, program examples, a companion website, and a teacher's manual.
· In addition to the printed book and articles, this book cites many reliable references that can be found online. For example, the references include links to sites where Internet Requests for Comments (RFCs) can be accessed. This book is a rare textbook on distributed computing, not only providing a detailed introduction to the core concepts and principles of distributed programming but also adopting the "learn-by-doing" method, allowing readers to reinforce their knowledge through program design and experimental exercises. The book consists of 12 chapters, comprehensively covering computing paradigms, protocols, and application programming interfaces (APIs), including sockets, multicast, remote method invocation (RMI), Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Interface Definition Language (IDL), applets, servlets, Common Gateway Interface (CGI), and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Each chapter first introduces a paradigm and/or protocol, then explains how to use the API to illustrate the core concepts. To make the book clearer and more concise, the author adopts a narrative style and uses numerous illustrative codes and examples. Through this book, readers can apply basic distributed programming techniques to build network services and network applications, including Internet applications. It is specifically designed as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students for distributed computing courses.
Supplementary Materials: The original author has provided excellent supplementary materials for this book. Errata, sample codes, and presentations for instructors can all be found on the author's website. The URL is: http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~mliu/book/index.html
The book consists of 12 chapters, comprehensively covering computing paradigms, protocols, and application programming interfaces (APIs), including sockets, multicast, remote method invocation (RMI), Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Interface Definition Language (IDL), applets, servlets, Common Gateway Interface (CGI), and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Each chapter first introduces a paradigm and/or protocol, then explains how to use the API to illustrate the core concepts. It is designed as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students for distributed computing courses.