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What does "bottleneck" mean in programming?

bottleneck is one of the most common terms in software development. This guide explains what it means, how it is used in practice, and why it matters, with real examples from the developer world.

Definition

The part of a system that limits overall performance. A bottleneck is the slowest component in a pipeline: making other parts faster will not help until the bottleneck is addressed.

Example

"The profiler showed that the database query is the bottleneck; everything else is fast."

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