What is concurrency?

It is estimated that the amount of data that needs to be processed by computer programs doubles every two years. The International Data Corporation (IDC), for example, estimates that, by 2020, there will be 5,200 GB of data for every person on earth. With this staggering volume of data come insatiable demands for computing power, and, while numerous computing techniques are being developed and utilized every day, concurrent programming remains one of the most prominent ways to effectively and accurately process data.

While some might be intimidated when the word concurrency appears, the notion behind it is quite intuitive, and it is very common, even in a non-programming context. However, this is not to say that concurrent programs are as simple as sequential ones; they are indeed more difficult to write and understand. Yet, once a correct and effective concurrent structure is achieved, significant improvement in execution time will follow, as you will see later on.