Busy-waiting loop

As explained in Software Design for Python Programmers

Busy waiting is repeatedly consuming execution time while waiting instead of relinquishing control to other threads.

How Software Design for Python Programmers covers it

How deep it goes

Defines the scheduling cost and implements a timed loop, but does not develop a general waiting strategy.

Examples

Uses technician meter-setting and logger read-and-log durations as concrete busy-waiting examples.

What it assumes

Contrasts busy waiting with thread sleeping and places both within concurrent access to a shared meter.

What you can do after

Build it from scratch using a timed Python loop that continues until elapsed time reaches the requested duration.

How it connects

Connects busy waiting to threads, sleeping, critical regions, mutexes, semaphores, and the reader–writer problem.

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Also explained in

• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  100 Go Mistakes and How to Avoid ThemA busy loop is a repeated polling loop that continuously checks a condition instead of blocking until the condition may have changed.
• 

  liveBookmanning.com
  Rust in Action: Systems programming concepts and techniquesA spin loop repeatedly checks a condition while actively consuming CPU time instead of blocking execution.

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Related concepts

• sleepcontrasts with · A sleep operation suspends execution of a thread, goroutine, or coroutine for a specified duration, blocking or yielding according to its execution model.
• sync.Condaddressed by · sync.Cond is a Go standard-library condition-variable type that coordinates waiting and signaling among goroutines using a sync.Locker.
• missing valueaddressed by · A missing value is a marker or condition indicating that an expected data value or reference is absent, unavailable, unknown, or inapplicable.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Software Design for Python Programmers. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.