What is the difference between a process and a thread?

A process is an isolated execution unit with its own address space, resources, and state. A thread is a lighter-weight execution unit within a process that shares memory and resources with other threads of the same process.

Main differences:

• Isolation: processes are isolated from each other, threads within the same process share memory.
• Resources: creating a process requires more resources than creating a thread.
• Data exchange: it is easier for threads to exchange data through shared memory, while inter-process communication (IPC) is more complex.
• Parallelism: threads allow multiple tasks to be executed in parallel within a single process.

Example: in Go, a process is a running program, and goroutines are lightweight threads scheduled by the Go runtime within the process.