Friday, August 24, 2012

What is the difference between a process and a thread

Both processes and threads are independent sequences of execution. The typical difference is that threads (of the same process) run in a shared memory space, while processes run in separate memory spaces.
I'm not sure what "hardware" vs "software" threads might be referring to. Threads are an operating environment feature, rather than a CPU feature (though the CPU typically has operations that make threads efficient).
Erlang uses the term "process" because it does not expose a shared-memory multiprogramming model. Calling them "threads" would imply that they have shared memory.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/200469/what-is-the-difference-between-a-process-and-a-thread

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