Programming Concepts Intermediate

What is Thread?

The smallest unit of execution within a process, allowing concurrent operations to run within a single program.

Threads share the same memory space within a process, enabling parallel execution of tasks. Multi-threading improves performance for CPU-bound tasks on multi-core processors and keeps applications responsive during I/O operations.

Challenges include race conditions (concurrent access to shared data), deadlocks (threads waiting on each other), and thread safety. Synchronization primitives (mutexes, semaphores) coordinate access. Modern approaches include async/await and actor models.

Related Terms

Observer Pattern

A design pattern where an object (subject) maintains a list of dependents (observers) that are notified automatically of state changes.

Composition over Inheritance

A design principle favoring object composition (has-a relationships) over class inheritance (is-a relationships) for code reuse.

The practice of designing application programming interfaces that are consistent, intuitive, and maintainable for developers to consume.

The process of finding and fixing errors (bugs) in software code to ensure correct program behavior.

SOLID Principles

Five design principles for writing maintainable, flexible object-oriented code: Single Responsibility, Open-Closed, Liskov Substitution, Interface Segregation, and Dependency Inversion.

A mathematical notation that describes the worst-case performance of an algorithm as input size grows.

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