Best practice regarding number of threads in GUI applications

Question

In the past I\'ve worked with a number of programmers who have worked exclusively writing GUI applications.

And I\'ve been given the impression that they have almost

Answer 1

Yes.

GUI applications should minimize the the number of threads that they use for the following reasons:

1. Thread programming is very hard and complicated
2. In general, GUI applications do at most 2 things at once : a) Respond to User Input, and b) Perform a background task (such as load in data) in response to a user action or an anticipated user action

In general therefore, the added complexity of using multiple threads is not justified by the needs of the application.

There are of course exceptions to the rule.