Shortest job next

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Shortest job next (SJN) (also known as Shortest Job First (SJF)) is a scheduling policy that selects the waiting process with the smallest execution time to execute next.

Shortest job next is advantageous because of its simplicity and because it maximizes process throughput (in terms of the number of processes run to completion in a given amount of time). However, it has the potential for process starvation for processes which will require a long time to complete if short processes are continually added. Highest response ratio next is similar but provides a solution to this problem.

Shortest job next scheduling is rarely used outside of specialized environments because it requires accurate estimations of the runtime of all processes that are waiting to execute.

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