Advanced Python Programming

Chapter 21

What is a critical section?

Critical sections indicate shared resources that are accessed by multiple processes or threads in a concurrent application, which can lead to unexpected, and even erroneous, behaviors.

What is a race condition, and why is it undesirable in a concurrent program?

A race condition occurs when two or more threads/processes access and alter a shared resource simultaneously, resulting in mishandled and corrupted data.

What is the underlying cause of a race condition?

The root cause of a race condition is multiple threads/process reading in and altering a shared resource simultaneously; and, when all of the threads/processes finish their execution, only the result of the last thread/process is registered.