Question

What makes race conditions bad? Name and briefly describe two distinct factors needed for a race condition to exist. (PLEASE HELP)

Answer 1

Race conditions occurs when two or more threads or processes try to access and change same shared data or execute same piece of code simultaneously which often leads to inconsistent results.

Race conditions are bad as it leads to wrong and inconsistent results. Output of the program depends upon the order in which the thread access the shared data. So incorrect sequence of accessing shared data leads to wrong outputs.

For race conditions to exist following factors are needed :

1. There are  two or more threads or processes which are trying to execute same piece of code or shared data simultaneously

2. There is shared data called critical section which both threads or process are trying to access at same time and changing it which leads to  inconsistent results.