busy-wait

<programming>

To wait for an event by spinning through a tight loop or timed-delay loop that polls for the event on each pass, as opposed to setting up an interrupt handler and continuing execution on another part of the task. This is a wasteful technique, best avoided on time-sharing systems where a busy-waiting program may hog the processor.

[Jargon File]

Last updated: 1999-06-10

Nearby terms:

Busy Beaver ♦ busy-loop ♦ busy-wait ♦ Butterfly Common LISP ♦ Butterfly Scheme

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