Re: User-facing aspects of serializable transactions

On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Greg Stark <stark@enterprisedb.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 8:55 PM, Kevin Grittner
> <Kevin.Grittner@wicourts.gov> wrote:
>>
>> Whoa!  I just noticed this phrase on a re-read.  I think there might
>> be some misunderstanding here.
>>
>> You can be sure you've written your transaction safely just as soon as
>> your COMMIT returns without error.
>
> I think we have different definitions of "safely". You only know that
> you got away with it *this time* when the commit returns without
> error.
>
> I'm concerned with whether you can be sure that the 999th time you run
> it the database won't randomly decide to declare a serialization
> failure for reasons you couldn't predict were possible.

Aren't serialization failures of any sort unpredictable, or any database?

...Robert