What is the difference between multitasking and multiprocessing?
Clarifies the distinction between executing multiple tasks on one CPU versus using multiple CPUs.
Why Interviewers Ask This
This checks your understanding of concurrency models. Interviewers want to ensure you know when to parallelize tasks across cores versus time-slicing them on a single core.
How to Answer This Question
Define multitasking as rapid switching between tasks on a single CPU. Define multiprocessing as simultaneous execution on multiple CPUs. Contrast them in terms of hardware requirements, true parallelism, and fault tolerance. Use examples like web browsers vs scientific computing.
Key Points to Cover
- Single vs Multiple CPU
- True parallelism vs time slicing
- Hardware dependency
- Performance implications
Sample Answer
Multitasking involves a single CPU rapidly switching between tasks to create the illusion of simultaneity. Multiprocessing uses multiple CPUs to execute tasks truly in parallel. While multitasking improves responsiveness on single-core systems, multiprocessing significantly boosts performance for compute-intensive tasks by utilizing all available cores simultaneously.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Thinking multitasking means true parallelism
- Confusing threading with multiprocessing
- Ignoring the role of the scheduler
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