Book Reviews

During the past three years several textbooks on operating systems have appeared. (See, for example: P. Brinch Hansen, Operating System Principles, Prentice-Hall, 1973; E. G. Coffman and P. J. Denning, Operating Systems Theory, Prentice-Hall, 1973; S. E. Madnick and J. J. Donovan, Operating Systems, McGraw-Hill, 1974; A. C. Shaw, The Logical Design of Operating Systems, Prentice-Hall, 1974; A. N. Habermann, Introduction to Operating System Design, SRA, 1976.) This flurry of literary activity would seem to indicate that the subject of operating systems has reached a level of maturity sufficient to permit a systematic and rigorous presentation of the entire field. The present book provides an easy-to- read first exposure to some fundamental ideas relevant for understanding operating systems, but it falls short of a systematic treatment of its subject. It presents a variety of subtopics independently of each other, treated to different degrees´ of detail and precision. The overall impression conveyed is that of an outline, or list of concepts, that calls for further integration and a more technical presentation.