Creating and Using Threads

The threads packages cache the threads data structure and stacks so that the repetitive creation of threads can be reasonably inexpensive. However, creating and destroying threads as the threads are required is usually more expensive than managing a pool of threads that wait for independent work. A good example is an RPC server that creates a thread for each request and destroys the thread when the reply is delivered.

Thread creation has less overhead than the overhead of process creation. However, thread creation is not efficient when compared to the cost of creating a few instructions. Create threads for processing that lasts at least a couple of thousand machine instructions.