Deadlocks, one of the most common concurrency problems, will be the first problem that we analyze in this book. In this chapter, we will discuss the theoretical causes of deadlocks in concurrent programming. We will cover a classical synchronization problem in concurrency, called the Dining Philosophers problem, as a real-life example of deadlock. We will also illustrate an actual implementation of deadlock in Python. We will discuss several methods to address the problem. This chapter will also cover the concept of livelock, which is relevant to deadlock and is a relatively common problem in concurrent programming.
The following topics will be covered in this chapter:
- The idea behind deadlock, and how to simulate it in Python
- Common solutions to deadlock, and how to implement them in Python
- The concept of livelock, and its connection to deadlock
