Thread safety

When we talk about thread safety, we are talking about how safe it is to use something at the same time as other things. Think about a playground slide. If only one person uses it at a time, it's safe. But if lots of people try to use it all at once, someone might get hurt.

The same thing can happen when computer programs try to use the same resources at the same time. A resource can be something like a piece of memory, a file, or a database. If two programs try to use the same resource all at once, they might get confused and do the wrong thing. This can cause bugs and errors in the program.

To make sure this doesn't happen, programmers use something called a lock. It's like a sign that says "only one program can use this resource at a time." When a program starts to use a resource, it puts a lock on it. This lock makes sure that no other programs can use the same resource until the first one is done.

This makes sure that everything is safe and works as it should. So just like it's important to use the playground slide safely, it's important for computer programs to use resources safely too!