Benefits and pitfalls of parallelism

Parallel processing not only offers significant speed advantages but also comes with challenges such as thread contention and data dependency issues. This section focuses on understanding when to use parallel processing effectively. It outlines the benefits and potential problems, providing guidance on choosing between parallel and sequential processing.

The key scenarios where parallel processing excels over sequential methods are as follows:

• Computationally intensive tasks: Imagine crunching numbers, processing images, or analyzing vast datasets. These are the playgrounds for parallel processing.
• Independent operations: Parallelism thrives when tasks are independent, meaning they don’t rely on each other’s results. Think of filtering items in a list or resizing multiple images. Each operation can be handled concurrently by a separate thread, boosting efficiency without causing tangled dependencies.
• Input/Output...