Concurrency for Dummies

Concurrency is a word that might sound complex, but it's actually not that difficult to understand. So, let's imagine a scenario to help us make sense of it. Have you ever been to a playground with your friends and noticed that there are lots of activities happening at the same time? Some kids are swinging, others are sliding, some are climbing, and there might even be a game of tag going on. Well, that's a bit like what concurrency means.

Concurrency is when multiple things are happening simultaneously or at the same time. Just like at the playground, where different activities are happening together, concurrency in the computer world means that multiple tasks or processes are occurring at once. Picture it as different tasks juggling for the attention of a computer. Each task wants to be carried out and completed, but they need to share the resources of the computer, such as the processor or memory. Just like the kids at the playground sharing swings, slides, and climbing structures, these tasks need to share the computer's resources to get their job done.

Let's take a simple example to understand this better. Imagine you're listening to music on your phone while also browsing the internet and chatting with your friends. At the same time, your phone needs to handle all these tasks together. It needs to play the music, load web pages, and receive messages. This is an example of concurrency. All these activities are happening simultaneously, and your phone manages to handle them all by giving each task a little bit of attention and then switching between them. Your phone's processor and memory are being shared by these tasks, and that's what allows them all to happen at the same time.

So, concurrency is like a juggling act where multiple tasks or processes are happening at the same time, sharing the resources of a computer or device. It's just like when you see lots of activities happening at once on a playground. And just like at the playground, everyone wants their turn and needs to share the resources in order to play. Does that make sense? Is there anything else you'd like to know?