Editing Dining philosophers problem (section)

{{short description|Problem used to illustrate synchronization issues and techniques for resolving them}}
[[File:Dining philosophers diagram.jpg|thumb|Illustration of the dining philosophers problem. Each philosopher has a bowl of spaghetti and can reach two of the forks.]]
In [[computer science]], the '''dining philosophers problem''' is an example problem often used in [[Concurrency (computer science)|concurrent]] algorithm design to illustrate [[Synchronization (computer science)|synchronization]] issues and techniques for resolving them.

It was originally formulated in 1965 by [[Edsger W. Dijkstra|Edsger Dijkstra]] as a student exam exercise, presented in terms of computers [[resource contention|competing for access]] to [[tape drive]] peripherals.
Soon after, [[Tony Hoare]] gave the problem its present form.<ref>{{cite EWD|1000}}</ref><ref name="formalization">{{cite book|author1=J. Díaz|author2=I. Ramos|title=Formalization of Programming Concepts: International Colloquium, Peniscola, Spain, April 19–25, 1981. Proceedings|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pl4VJKQlcG4C|year=1981|publisher=Birkhäuser|isbn=978-3-540-10699-9|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pl4VJKQlcG4C&pg=PA323 323 ], [https://books.google.com/books?id=pl4VJKQlcG4C&pg=PA326 326]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.usingcsp.com/cspbook.pdf|title=Communicating Sequential Processes|last=Hoare|first=C. A. R.|publisher=usingcsp.com |orig-year=originally published in 1985 by Prentice Hall International|year=2004}}</ref><ref name="Pearson Education, Inc">{{citation|title=Operating Systems - Design and Implementation, 3rd edition [Chapter: 2.3.1 The Dining Philosophers Problem]|publisher=Pearson Education, Inc.|date=2006|first1=Andrew S.|last1=Tanenbaum}}</ref>