4 ms·

i'm kinda surprised by the prevalence of that attitude. in theory, yes, you are right. but that's really a bit of programmer purism. in practice, a DB that stop

by bakhy 11y ago

i'm kinda surprised by the prevalence of that attitude. in theory, yes, you are right. but that's really a bit of programmer purism. in practice, a DB that stops working can mean a sudden stop in doing business, which is a huge catastrophe. money lost every second. inconsistency is horrible, and theoretically the same thing, you are right! but it's something you might be able to fix, without the whole system failing, with maybe just a limited number of people knowing what happened and not the whole company and/or all customers. this is kinda fucked up, but i think it counts. (and PS, accountants find these errors. it's their job, and they have experience enough not to trust any proof of correctness, and check everything twice.)

tptacek 11y ago
An account database that makes new money out of thin air is a huge catastrophe! I honestly don't understand how this is even a live issue for debate. The "inconsistency" we're talking about is terrifying.
- bakhy 11y ago
  they are both a catastrophe, i never implied that inconsistency is not one. i'm merely involved in semantic bickering here :) both are bad in their own way, but which is worse will depend on the case. bear in mind that programmers make mistakes all the time. they can also cause such effects. which is why we often do things in a way where incorrect data can be corrected later. particularly in anything related to accounting, where the practice has existed for centuries. i'm really not interested in claiming that one catastrophe is better than the other, but a data corruption in a database can sometimes be more problematic. edit - sorry, i just noticed i actually did say, in another thread here, that corruption is worse. i would like to take that back now :D
MichaelGG 11y ago
It's really case-specific. But it's not hard to see where an error page "SQL Connection Failed" is better than not recording user's orders, mis-crediting their account, etc. At least with a hard error it's obvious there's a problem and it must be fixed immediately. With inconsistencies, you might e.g. end up with customers expecting travel reservations only to show up and find this to not be the case. By the time the accountant finds the error, the business could be irreparably harmed.

by bakhy 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

An account database that makes new money out of thin air is a huge catastrophe! I honestly don't understand how this is even a live issue for debate. The "inconsistency" we're talking about is terrifying.

bakhy 11y ago
they are both a catastrophe, i never implied that inconsistency is not one. i'm merely involved in semantic bickering here :) both are bad in their own way, but which is worse will depend on the case. bear in mind that programmers make mistakes all the time. they can also cause such effects. which is why we often do things in a way where incorrect data can be corrected later. particularly in anything related to accounting, where the practice has existed for centuries. i'm really not interested in claiming that one catastrophe is better than the other, but a data corruption in a database can sometimes be more problematic. edit - sorry, i just noticed i actually did say, in another thread here, that corruption is worse. i would like to take that back now :D

MichaelGG 11y ago

It's really case-specific. But it's not hard to see where an error page "SQL Connection Failed" is better than not recording user's orders, mis-crediting their account, etc. At least with a hard error it's obvious there's a problem and it must be fixed immediately. With inconsistencies, you might e.g. end up with customers expecting travel reservations only to show up and find this to not be the case. By the time the accountant finds the error, the business could be irreparably harmed.