What is “overhead”?

Question

I am a student in Computer Science and I am hearing the word \"overhead\" a lot when it comes to programs and sorts. What does this mean exactly?

Answer 1

Overhead is simply the more time consumption in program execution. Example ; when we call a function and its control is passed where it is defined and then its body is executed, this means that we make our CPU to run through a long process( first passing the control to other place in memory and then executing there and then passing the control back to the former position) , consequently it takes alot performance time, hence Overhead. Our goals are to reduce this overhead by using the inline during function definition and calling time, which copies the content of the function at the function call hence we dont pass the control to some other location, but continue our program in a line, hence inline.