can the producer/consumer problem b

can the producer/consumer problem be considered simply a special case of the readers/writers problem with a single writer (the producer) and a single reader (the consumer)? The answer is no. The producer is not just a writer. It must read queue pointers to determine where to write the next item, and it must determine if the buffer is full. Similarly, the consumer is not just a reader,because it must adjust the queue pointers to show that it has removed a unit from the buffer.