If I sat down at one of our database consoles and fired off a few queries and saw that hundreds of thousands of dollars had appeared out of nowhere, I'd tell my

If I sat down at one of our database consoles and fired off a few queries and saw that hundreds of thousands of dollars had appeared out of nowhere, I'd tell my boss that the database was corrupt. However, for the purposes of Aphyr's original article, it's a moot point specifically because Aphyr replaced the symbol with the substance[0]. He specifically states the conclusion, and in detail explains why it happened and what the ramifications are. Any quibbling about the word corruption is a distraction, because the underlying fault of the system is still present. The system claims to support snapshot isolation, but does not, and the result of that fact is that data will not be correct for users expecting snapshot isolation. [0] - http://lesswrong.com/lw/nv/replace_the_symbol_with_the_substance/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/nv/replace_the_symbol_with_the_subst...