Chapter 22. Introduction to Asynchronous Programming

Processes, Threads, and Asynchronous Programming

When you start a program, the system creates a new process in memory. A process is the set of resources that comprise a running program. These include the virtual address space, file handles, and a host of other things required for the program to run.

Inside the process, the system creates a kernel object, called a thread, which represents the actual execution of the program. (Thread is short for "thread of execution.") Once the process is set up, the system starts execution of the thread at the first statement in method Main.

Some important things to know about threads are the following:

  • By default, a process contains only a single thread, which ...

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