What is the difference between a thread and a fiber?

Question

What is the difference between a thread and a fiber? I\'ve heard of fibers from ruby and I\'ve read heard they\'re available in other languages, could somebody explain to me

Answer 1

Note that in addition to Threads and Fibers, Windows 7 introduces User-Mode Scheduling:

User-mode scheduling (UMS) is a light-weight mechanism that applications can use to schedule their own threads. An application can switch between UMS threads in user mode without involving the system scheduler and regain control of the processor if a UMS thread blocks in the kernel. UMS threads differ from fibers in that each UMS thread has its own thread context instead of sharing the thread context of a single thread. The ability to switch between threads in user mode makes UMS more efficient than thread pools for managing large numbers of short-duration work items that require few system calls.

More information about threads, fibers and UMS is available by watching Dave Probert: Inside Windows 7 - User Mode Scheduler (UMS).