When threads are blocked (say due to time consuming reads or writes) on an I/O call inside an object’s synchronized method and also if the other methods of the object are also synchronized then the object is essentially frozen while the thread is blocked.
Be sure to not synchronize code that makes blocking calls, or make sure that a non-synchronized method exists on an object with synchronized blocking code. Although this technique requires some care to ensure that the resulting code is still thread safe, it allows objects to be responsive to other threads when a thread holding its locks is blocked.
Note: The java.nio.* package was introduced in JDK1.4. The coolest addition is nonblocking I/O (aka NIO that stands for New I/O).
Note: The java.nio.* package was introduced in JDK1.4. The coolest addition is nonblocking I/O (aka NIO that stands for New I/O).
