As a for-example, we were implementing this stuff in the days before MySQL had ACID transactions (back when they bragged about how much faster they were than ot

As a for-example, we were implementing this stuff in the days before MySQL had ACID transactions (back when they bragged about how much faster they were than other databases, handwaving over the cost others had for implementing transaction logs and rollback). The DBA and I tried to get Sybase in, but the Sybase sales rep, unused to startups, quickly offended the CTO with vague pricing. He was an open source purist and wanted MySQL. I cannot begin to explain how much extra code we had to write to deal with the lack of transactions in MySQL! Sybase would have saved us a ton of time and risk.