Question

Is using a join to wait until a Thread has finished the same as using the an observer to notify the calling thread class when the thread has finised ?

Using join - 

public class Reader {

    Thread t = new Thread(new ReadContent());
    t.start();
    t.join();
    System.out.println("Thread has finished");

        public class ReadContent() implements Runnable{
        }

        public void run() {
            readContentURL(); 
        }
}

/*****************************************************************************/
    Using observer - 


public interface ReadContentListener{

    public void contentRead();

}


 public class Reader implements ReadContentListener {

    Thread t = new Thread(new ReadContent(this));
    t.start();

    pubic void contentRead(){
     System.out.println("Thread has finished");
    }

        public class ReadContent implements Runnable{

        public ReadContent(ReadContentListener readContentListener) {
            this.readContentListener = readContentListener;
        }

        public void run() {
            readContentURL(); 
            this.readContentListener.contentRead();
        }
}


/*************************************************************/

    public GenericScreenAnimation(String nextScreen, Thread genericWorkerThread)
{

         this.genericWorkerThread = genericWorkerThread;
         this.genericWorkerThread.start();
         initialise();
         try {
            this.genericWorkerThread.join();
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        ScreenController.displayNextScreen(nextScreen);
}

Answer 1

No, they are not the same. I’d say using join() in this context is not good programming practice – why use Threads otherwise? You’re essentially turning what is an asynchronous operation into a synchronous one.

Using the Observer pattern is Asynchronous and, if you’re doing this in UI code, is what I would use to prevent the GUI locking up (well, maybe use a SwingWorker or something like that, but the same principle).