Busy spin

Okay kiddo, imagine you are waiting in a long line to get ice cream. You really want your ice cream, but the line is moving very slowly. What do you do?

Sometimes, people just stand still and wait patiently. But other times, they might get frustrated and start fidgeting, tapping their feet, or looking around. This is kind of like what busy spin is in computer programming.

When a computer program needs to wait for something, like a file to download, it has a few options. One option is to just stop and do nothing until the file is ready. But this can be really slow and boring, just like waiting in line for ice cream. So instead, the program might do busy spin.

Busy spin is when the program keeps doing something else while it waits for the thing it needs to be ready. This can be useful because it keeps the program active and doing work, so it doesn't waste time just waiting. But it can also be kind of pointless, like when you fidget in line and don't actually do anything to make the line move faster.

For example, imagine a program that needs to read data from a sensor. Instead of just waiting for the sensor data to be available, the program might do busy spin by constantly checking if the data is ready. This way, it can move on to other tasks while it's waiting, but it's not actually doing anything useful during those checks. It's just spinning around, hoping the data will be ready soon.

So busy spin can be helpful in some situations, but it's not always the best option. Sometimes it's better to just wait patiently, like when you're standing in line for ice cream.