title: For a windows service, which is better, a wait-spin or a timer?
body: <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/246697/windows-service-and-timer"><strong>This question about Timers for windows services</strong></a> got me thinking:</p>
  
  <p>Say I have (and I do) a windows service thats waiting on a <a href="http://www.albahari.com/threading/part2.aspx#_Wait_Handles" rel="nofollow noreferrer">WaitHandle</a> and when woken, it dives into a wait-spin like I have shown below in a flowchart</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.86th.org/waitspin.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">wait spin diagram http://www.86th.org/waitspin.jpg</a></p>
  
  <p>I'm curious if using a timer would be better than a <a href="http://www.albahari.com/threading/part2.aspx#_Synchronization_Essentials" rel="nofollow noreferrer">wait-spin loop</a> (sometimes called a spin-wait).  I'll be honest, I've never used timers for anything other than my own tinkering.</p>
  
  <p>I don't have any plans to switch unless the differences are profound and the benefits of using a Timer are amazing.  However, I'm very interested on peoples thoughts on one vs the other for future development of this project.</p>
  
  <p>Let me know if this should be a wiki</p>