Parallelism
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
Parallelism is doing multiple things at literally the exact same time — two chefs cooking two dishes simultaneously. You need multiple processors or cores for true parallelism. Concurrency is taking turns; parallelism is actually simultaneous.
Real Talk
Parallelism is the simultaneous execution of multiple computations, typically on multiple CPU cores or machines. Unlike concurrency (which can happen on one core), parallelism requires true simultaneous execution. Used for CPU-intensive work like image processing.
When You'll Hear This
"We parallelised the image resize job across 8 workers." / "Python's GIL limits true parallelism — use multiprocessing instead."
Related Terms
Async
Async means 'don't wait around'. You order food at a restaurant, then chat with friends instead of standing at the kitchen window staring.
Concurrency
Concurrency is juggling multiple tasks at once — not necessarily at the exact same instant, but switching between them fast enough that they all seem to be...
Process
A process is a full running program with its own isolated chunk of memory.
Race Condition
A race condition is when two parts of your code are racing to do something at the same time and the winner isn't guaranteed — leading to unexpected, hard-t...
Thread
A thread is a mini-worker inside your program that can run tasks independently.