Despite the obvious benefits, novice programmers are reluctant to write multi-threaded applications because of their perceived complexity. This article will offer a gentle introduction to multi-threaded programming.
Threads are multiple instances of an application or applet that execute concurrently.
That's a mouthful isn't it. Let's break it down a little. When we start an application, it executes in its own process - it has its own chunk of memory for data storage, and it runs alongside other processes. Each process represents a single thread of execution. Now a multi-threaded application is a special kind of application.