Very good post. The two meanings of "consistent", and the generally different ways database literature and distributed systems literature approach the world, ar

Very good post. The two meanings of "consistent", and the generally different ways database literature and distributed systems literature approach the world, are a really common source of confusion. One way out of the confusion is to use different words. For example, using "linearizability", "serializability" and "strict serializability" may cut down confusion. These terms have complex-sounding names, but generally very approachable definitions. Aphyr's blog post on different models is a good place to start: https://aphyr.com/posts/313-strong-consistency-models https://aphyr.com/posts/313-strong-consistency-models Another set of terms that approaches a different part of this problem is Harvest and Yield, which can help explain real-world availability and consistency (http://codahale.com/you-cant-sacrifice-partition-tolerance/ http://codahale.com/you-cant-sacrifice-partition-tolerance/). Unfortunately, the original paper just seems to add to the term confusion (http://brooker.co.za/blog/2014/10/12/harvest-yield.html http://brooker.co.za/blog/2014/10/12/harvest-yield.html).