GoKawiilReview of Paul McKenney's free textbook on parallel programming published
A reviewer shares detailed impressions of Paul E. McKenney's open-access book 'Is Parallel Programming Hard, And, If So, What Can You Do About It?', tracing how attending the 2026 Software Should Work conference and conversations with Fil-C creator Filip Pizlo sparked renewed interest in concurrency after a period working with TLA+ and a failed attempt to learn Lean. The piece recounts the reviewer's background before diving into reactions to McKenney's material on synchronization and concurrent programming.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The review highlights ongoing interest in free, in-depth technical resources for understanding concurrency, a notoriously difficult area of systems programming tied to the Linux kernel's RCU mechanism that McKenney authored. It also suggests, through the reviewer's personal narrative, that practitioners from adjacent fields like formal verification may find real gaps in their concurrency knowledge, which could point to broader demand for accessible educational material bridging distributed systems theory and low-level multicore programming.
- The review covers Paul E. McKenney's free online textbook on parallel programming.
- The reviewer's perspective was shaped by conversations at the 2026 Software Should Work conference, including with Fil-C creator Filip Pizlo.
- The piece frames concurrency as a distinct and challenging discipline compared to distributed systems reasoning tools like TLA+.
Is Parallel Programming Hard (McKenney) paperback — This is the print edition of the very textbook discussed in the article, handy for readers who want to dig into parallel programming and synchronization concepts covered by RCU's own author. Having a physical copy makes it easier to annotate and work through the exercises compared to reading a PDF on screen.
See Is Parallel Programming Hard (McKenney) paperback on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: ahelwer.ca — Andrew Helwer, 2026-09-21
Published there as: “Book review: Is parallel programming hard, and, if so, what can you do about it?”
Read the original report → The summary and analysis above are GoKawiil's own, written from reporting by the source above. Facts and quotes belong to the original publisher.