In computer science, the dining philosophers problem is an example problem often used in concurrent algorithm design to illustrate synchronization issues and techniques for resolving them.
It was originally formulated in 1965 by Edsger Dijkstra as a student exam exercise, in terms of computers competing for access to tape drive peripherals. Soon after, Tony Hoare gave the problem its present formulation.
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Famous quotes containing the words dining, philosophers and/or problem:
“Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has parlor, bedroom,
And dining room thrown pell-mell in the kitchen.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“War is not a life: it is a situation,
One which may neither be ignored nor accepted,
A problem to be met with ambush and stratagem,
Enveloped or scattered.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)