Process
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
A process is a full running program with its own isolated chunk of memory. Unlike threads that share space, processes are separate apartments — they don't mess with each other's stuff. Crashing one process doesn't take down the others.
Real Talk
A process is an independent program in execution with its own memory space, file handles, and system resources. The OS manages processes via a scheduler. Inter-process communication (IPC) is needed for processes to share data.
When You'll Hear This
"Run that CPU-heavy task in a separate process." / "The worker process crashed — check the logs."
Related Terms
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...
Cron
Cron is a scheduler that runs your code automatically at set times.
Parallelism
Parallelism is doing multiple things at literally the exact same time — two chefs cooking two dishes simultaneously.
Sandbox
A sandbox is a safe, isolated play area where code can run without affecting anything real.
Thread
A thread is a mini-worker inside your program that can run tasks independently.