Critical Sections in Concurrent Programming: From Broken Attempts to Peterson's Algorithm

This chapter delves into the implementation of critical sections in concurrent programming. It starts by introducing the concept and importance of critical sections, then progresses through several flawed attempts (e.g., naive locking and flag-based mechanisms), highlighting issues like race conditions and deadlocks. The chapter culminates in Peterson's algorithm, an elegant solution guaranteeing mutual exclusion and progress, while acknowledging the complexity of its correctness proof and practical challenges such as non-atomic operations and instruction reordering.