thrash

To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing anything

useful. Paging or swapping systems that are overloaded

waste most of their time moving data into and out of core

(rather than performing useful computation) and are therefore

said to thrash. Thrashing can also occur in a cache due to

cache conflict or in a multiprocessor (see ping-pong).

Someone who keeps changing his mind (especially about what to

work on next) is said to be thrashing. A person frantically

trying to execute too many tasks at once (and not spending

enough time on any single task) may also be described as

thrashing.

Compare multitask.

[Jargon File]