The concurrency solution in the JDK has quite a bit of complexity baked in. Without understanding the Java Memory Model, it is impossible to get it right.

The one silver lining in this cloud was that I was able to read almost all of Jim Waldo ‘s Java: The Good Parts while I waited (the book comes in at under 200 pages).

For more on the threading issues raised here, you should read the excellent book Java Concurrency in Practice, written by Brian Goetz and others, along with the other material presented in the ...