在软件工程中，忙碌等待是进程反复检查一个条件是否为真的技术，如键盘输入是否可用。忙碌等待也可以用来生成一个任意的时间延迟，若系统无法产生特定长度的时间方法，需要用到忙碌等待。不同计算机的处理器速度差异很大，特别是一些处理器根据外部因素（例如操作系统上的负载）设计动态调整速度，如。因此，忙碌等待延迟技术往往产生不可预知，甚至不一致的结果，只有未使用的代码可以决定处理器处理空循环速度的情形下，才能在此情形确认忙碌等待延迟的时间。

在某些情况下，忙碌等待是有效的策略，特别是实现自旋锁设计的操作系统上运行对称多处理。不过一般来说，忙碌等待是应该避免的反模式，处理器时间应该用来执行任务，而不是浪费在无用的活动。

In software engineering, busy-waiting, busy-looping or spinning is a technique in which a process repeatedly checks to see if a condition is true, such as whether keyboard input or a lock is available. Spinning can also be used to generate an arbitrary time delay, a technique that was necessary on systems that lacked a method of waiting a specific length of time. Processor speeds vary greatly from computer to computer, especially as some processors are designed to dynamically adjust speed based on external factors, such as the load on the operating system. As such, spinning as a time delay technique often produces unpredictable or even inconsistent results unless code is implemented to determine how quickly the processor can execute a "do nothing" loop, or the looping code explicitly checks a real-time clock.