Recently in my graduate level operating systems course, we were assigned to make a networked semaphore manager. Essentially, client machines can connect to the semaphore manager and ask it to control access to SOMETHING. In our case, we’re just proving a point, so we’re controlling access standard error. It’s an interesting problem because coding anything over a network is tough. Secondly, creating a reliable semaphore manager is tough on it’s own. To make matters worse, we’re using a hosted environment called Inferno. Inferno was once created by Bell Labs, but is now distributed by Vitanuova. For reference:
Oh, and it’s due in two days. Taking a bit of time off was nice, but probably not the wisest decision.