摘自Effective Java博客:

The notifyAll method should generally be used in preference to notify. 

If notify is used, great care must be taken to ensure liveness.

所以，我的理解是(从前面提到的博客，“Yann TM”对公认答案和Java文档的评论):

notify() : JVM awakens one of the waiting threads on this object. Thread selection is made arbitrarily without fairness. So same thread can be awakened again and again. So system's state changes but no real progress is made. Thus creating a livelock. notifyAll() : JVM awakens all threads and then all threads race for the lock on this object. Now, CPU scheduler selects a thread which acquires lock on this object. This selection process would be much better than selection by JVM. Thus, ensuring liveness.

notify() -从对象的等待集中随机选择一个线程，并将其置于BLOCKED状态。对象的等待集中的其余线程仍然处于WAITING状态。

notifyAll() -将所有线程从对象的等待集移动到BLOCKED状态。使用notifyAll()后，共享对象的等待集中没有剩余线程，因为所有线程现在都处于BLOCKED状态，而不是WAITING状态。

BLOCKED—锁定获取阻塞。 WAITING -等待通知(或阻塞连接完成)。

这里有一个例子。运行它。然后将notifyAll()中的一个更改为notify()，看看会发生什么。

ProducerConsumerExample类

public class ProducerConsumerExample {

    private static boolean Even = true;
    private static boolean Odd = false;

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Dropbox dropbox = new Dropbox();
        (new Thread(new Consumer(Even, dropbox))).start();
        (new Thread(new Consumer(Odd, dropbox))).start();
        (new Thread(new Producer(dropbox))).start();
    }
}

Dropbox类

public class Dropbox {

    private int number;
    private boolean empty = true;
    private boolean evenNumber = false;

    public synchronized int take(final boolean even) {
        while (empty || evenNumber != even) {
            try {
                System.out.format("%s is waiting ... %n", even ? "Even" : "Odd");
                wait();
            } catch (InterruptedException e) { }
        }
        System.out.format("%s took %d.%n", even ? "Even" : "Odd", number);
        empty = true;
        notifyAll();

        return number;
    }

    public synchronized void put(int number) {
        while (!empty) {
            try {
                System.out.println("Producer is waiting ...");
                wait();
            } catch (InterruptedException e) { }
        }
        this.number = number;
        evenNumber = number % 2 == 0;
        System.out.format("Producer put %d.%n", number);
        empty = false;
        notifyAll();
    }
}

消费阶层

import java.util.Random;

public class Consumer implements Runnable {

    private final Dropbox dropbox;
    private final boolean even;

    public Consumer(boolean even, Dropbox dropbox) {
        this.even = even;
        this.dropbox = dropbox;
    }

    public void run() {
        Random random = new Random();
        while (true) {
            dropbox.take(even);
            try {
                Thread.sleep(random.nextInt(100));
            } catch (InterruptedException e) { }
        }
    }
}

生产类

import java.util.Random;

public class Producer implements Runnable {

    private Dropbox dropbox;

    public Producer(Dropbox dropbox) {
        this.dropbox = dropbox;
    }

    public void run() {
        Random random = new Random();
        while (true) {
            int number = random.nextInt(10);
            try {
                Thread.sleep(random.nextInt(100));
                dropbox.put(number);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) { }
        }
    }
}

在这里，所有的醒来都没有多大意义。 Wait notify和notifyall，所有这些都放在拥有对象的监视器之后。如果一个线程处于等待阶段，并且调用了notify，那么这个线程将占用该锁，此时没有其他线程可以占用该锁。所以并发访问根本不能发生。据我所知，只有在锁定对象后才能调用wait notify和notifyall。如果我错了，请指正。

注意，对于并发实用程序，您还可以在signal()和signalAll()之间进行选择，因为在那里调用了这些方法。因此，即使使用java.util.concurrent，这个问题仍然有效。

Doug Lea在他著名的书中提出了一个有趣的观点:如果notify()和Thread.interrupt()同时发生，通知实际上可能会丢失。如果可能发生这种情况，并且有显著的影响，notifyAll()是一个更安全的选择，即使您付出了开销的代价(大多数时间唤醒太多线程)。

Notify()唤醒在同一对象上调用wait()的第一个线程。

notifyAll()唤醒在同一对象上调用wait()的所有线程。

优先级最高的线程将首先运行。