What is synchronization?

Synchronization is how you coordinate multiple threads/processes so they:

• don’t corrupt shared data
• don’t run in the wrong order
• can safely communicate

Why it matters

Without synchronization you can get:

• race conditions
• deadlocks
• inconsistent reads

Common synchronization tools

For threads (threadingthreading)

• LockLock, RLockRLock
• SemaphoreSemaphore, BoundedSemaphoreBoundedSemaphore
• EventEvent
• ConditionCondition
• BarrierBarrier

For processes (multiprocessingmultiprocessing)

• multiprocessing.Lockmultiprocessing.Lock, RLockRLock
• multiprocessing.Semaphoremultiprocessing.Semaphore
• multiprocessing.Eventmultiprocessing.Event
• multiprocessing.Conditionmultiprocessing.Condition

Design tip

Prefer designs that reduce shared mutable state:

• message passing via queue.Queuequeue.Queue (threads)
• multiprocessing.Queuemultiprocessing.Queue (processes)

When you must share state, use synchronization.

🧪 Try It Yourself

Exercise 1 – Basic Lock Usage

Exercise 2 – Lock as Context Manager

Exercise 3 – Detect Locked State