Someone at work just asked for the reasoning behind having to wrap a wait inside a synchronized.
Honestly I can't see the reasoning. I understand what the javadocs say--that the thread needs to be the owner of the object's monitor, but why? What problems does it prevent? (And if it's actually necessary, why can't the wait method get the monitor itself?)
I'm looking for a fairly in-depth why or maybe a reference to an article. I couldn't find one in a quick google.
Oh, also, how does thread.sleep compare?
edit: Great set of answers--I really wish I could select more than one because they all helped me understand what was going on.
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