Issue #21309 has been updated by byroot (Jean Boussier). I'm not sure I see the use case for `Mutex` to be shareable, at least in this specific scenario. To take the `Timeout.timeout` example, making the mutex accessible from other ractors wouldn't solve the problem, because ultimately you need one timer thread and one event queue per Ractor. So clearly the issue here is that some Process global state should be refactored to be Ractor local. Now, more generally, if we got some shareable mutable state, then we'd need a shareable mutex. I just haven't yet encountered that case.
(CPython has done it, so it is feasible).
I don't want to go onto that debate here, but quickly: Python hasn't done it yet, it's still very much an experimental work in progress, and they may still backtrack when they figure out how much slower it end up being. And while Python is probably the closest thing to Ruby out there, there's still some significant difference that may make it harder. ---------------------------------------- Feature #21309: Can Thread::Mutex be Ractor shareable? https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/21309#change-112910 * Author: osyoyu (Daisuke Aritomo) * Status: Open ---------------------------------------- ## Background Keeping a `Mutex` object in a constant or a class instance variable is a common pattern seen in code with thread safety in mind. However, this kind of code does not play well with Ractors: ```ruby require 'thread' class C MUTEX = Mutex.new def self.foo MUTEX.synchronize { p 1 } end end Ractor.new { C.foo }.take ``` ``` t.rb:11: warning: Ractor is experimental, and the behavior may change in future versions of Ruby! Also there are many implementation issues. #<Thread:0x000000011d80f368 run> terminated with exception (report_on_exception is true): t.rb:7:in 'C.foo': can not access non-shareable objects in constant C::MUTEX by non-main ractor. (Ractor::IsolationError) from t.rb:12:in 'block in <main>' <internal:ractor>:711:in 'Ractor#take': thrown by remote Ractor. (Ractor::RemoteError) from t.rb:13:in '<main>' t.rb:7:in 'C.foo': can not access non-shareable objects in constant C::MUTEX by non-main ractor. (Ractor::IsolationError) from t.rb:12:in 'block in <main>' ``` Many libraries follow this pattern. `Mutex` not being Ractor shareable is blocking these libraries from being used from inside Ractors. `Timeout` in stdlib in particular has large impact since it is required from many other gems by default, including `net/http`. https://github.com/ruby/timeout/blob/v0.4.3/lib/timeout.rb#L49-L50 https://github.com/lostisland/faraday/blob/v2.13.1/lib/faraday/middleware.rb... ## Proposal Make built-in concurrency primitives (Thread::Mutex, Thread::ConditionVariable and Thread::Queue) Ractor shareable. While this idea may not be strictly aligned with idea of the Ractor world (exchanging messages for controlling concurrency?), I have the feeling that too many code is blocked from running in Ractors because `Mutex` is not Ractor shareable. Allowing `Mutex`es to be shared would make a large portion of existing Ruby code Ractor-compatible, or at least make migration much easier. I believe that it won't be semantically incorrect, since they are concurrency primitives after all. One thing to consider that the current `Mutex` implementation is based on the GVL (I believe so). Migration to some other implementation e.g. pthread_mutex or CRITICAL_SECTION may be needed to make Mutex work well on Ractors. -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/