Processes and Threading - robbiehume/CS-Notes GitHub Wiki


  • Process: a program executing on your computer

    • A process is just a construct/abstraction an OS uses
    • A program is a passive entity, a process is an active entity

  • Thread: a task associated with a process

    • A process usually has multiple threads

  • A single-core CPU can run one process at a time

    • Each core inside a multi-core CPU can run one process/thread at a time
    • With hyperthreading, you can achieve 2 per core by making it appear to the OS that a single core is actually 2

  • Synchronous

  • Asynchronous

  • Concurrency (single core): running and managing two or more tasks (process, program, thread) in overlapping time periods

    • Achieved through context switching on a single CPU

  • Parallelism (multi-core): running multiple tasks simultaneously

    • Achieved with multiple CPUs or multiple cores on a single CPU

  • Locks

  • Multiprocessing / multithreading

  • Coroutines / Subroutines

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