Yakov, your last threads example has a race condition.

Consider this:

thread 1 executes: synchronized (this){ dataToDisplay.add(data); }.

then thread 2 executes: synchronized (this){ dataToDisplay.add(data); }.

then thread 1 executes: if (dataToDisplay.size()==2){ System.out.println(dataToDisplay); }

then thread 2 executes: if (dataToDisplay.size()==2){ System.out.println(dataToDisplay); }

That last System.out.println(dataToDisplay); executes twice, which is not what you intended.

Yes, J2EE spec does not recommend it, but if you do it right everything works fine. Here's how this could be done

To control threads in a J2EE container use a thread pool (it's a singleton) and get threads from there. If you use J2SE 5.0, use the package java.util.concurrent (in particular, ThreadPoolExecutor). In J2SE 1.4 and below use an excellent concurrent package created by Doug Lea.

Disclaimer: It's just my personal opinion based on my prior experience with a pretty serious financial application. But I do not recommend you to violate J2EE spec.

Is a J2EE version of this example available? Since J2EE forbids explicit thread management, how would this be done on a web server?