We need to prevent multi-user access to the SQL backend (Re: New GnuCash article on LWN)

[Derek Atkins]

z33b0b at gmail.com writes:

> I think I understand at least some of the reasons for GC being single-user,
> but I'm curious if there's been any more thought lately to building
> multi-user functionality into GnuCash in future?

I believe there is an unstated goal of getting minimal multi-user
support working.  However doing it right is a major undertaking, because
it involves lots of cache consistency issues.  You have to make sure
that updates at one client affect changes in all the clients.  That's a
lot of work and restructuring for an application that wasn't designed
for that.

Repeat after me:  GnuCash is NOT a DATABASE Application.  It just uses a
database as a backing-store.

> Cheers,
>
> -- Erik Anderson

-derek

> On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 1:58 AM, Christian Stimming <stimming at tuhh.de>wrote:
>
>> Thanks, Herbert, for the link.
>>
>> The article raises one valid serious concern: The database backend does
>> nothing to prevent multiple user access. This is bad because simultaneous
>> access to the SQL database from multiple users will almost surely cause data
>> loss. On the other hand, the technology term "SQL backend" will almost
>> surely raise the user expectation that multiple user access were possible,
>> so for sure people will give it a try. Since it will corrupt their data, we
>> need to build in some prevention measure - the equivalent of the "lock
>> file", but inside the SQL database. Ideas, anyone?
>>
>> Also, it's amusing to me to see the "cutecash" project already mentioned in
>> there, even though it's only accessible through the SVN sources :-)
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Christian
>>
>> Zitat von Herbert Thoma <herbert.thoma at iis.fraunhofer.de>:
>>
>>  http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/387967/cc502c0dc33d97d3/
>>> --
>>> Herbert Thoma
>>> Dipl.-Ing., MBA
>>> Head of Video Group
>>> Multimedia Realtime Systems Department
>>> Fraunhofer IIS
>>> Am Wolfsmantel 33, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
>>> Phone: +49-9131-776-6130
>>> Fax:   +49-9131-776-6099
>>> email: tma at iis.fhg.de
>>> www: http://www.iis.fhg.de/
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>>>
>>
>>
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-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available