Eventual consistency in the Wild West

jefclaes.be

43 points·Nemmie··6 comments

Great read.

If someone is interested in similar text, though fiction, I liked Clive Cussler's "The Chase" (novel): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(novel) (it's about a former bank robber who founded his own bank, in San Francisco at that timeframe til 1906)

I think every programmer knows that businesses love to take technical shortcuts and are willing to "leak" quality if it gets them an economic product (or profit) more quickly...

In a way, Eventual Consistency is just a way of making that work for you rather than trying to fight the tide. Just limit your exposure at the system-boundaries.

Are they wrong to do this?

"Hey look buddy, I'm an Engineer. That means I solve problems. Not problems like 'was that moral?', because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems."

But seriously: Not necessarily, but it's quite possible to "morally" shoot yourself in the foot.

Why did he need a fast horse? Couldn't he have done the first withdrawal just after the books went out the door at one branch, then calmly gone over to the other branch for the 2nd withdrawal? No need to race the books, if the book transfer interval was only every few hours?

Dunno, but it could be explained if the bank already had a time-restriction to cover the time between regular transmissions, but not the time of the transmission itself.

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