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

[Derek Atkins]

Graham Leggett <minfrin at sharp.fm> writes:

> On 19 May 2010, at 11:47 PM, Per Kjeldaas wrote:
>
>> Your solution to block the whole database is good enough for me.
>
> It's a real shame that a system fundamentally designed to offer multi
> user access to data should be crippled in such a fashion. In the
> process, virtually all reasons to use a SQL database are lost.

What was "fundamentally designed to offer multi user access"?  GnuCash
most certainly was not, even when it's using a SQL Database for data
storage.  Repeat after me:  GnuCash is NOT a Database Application.  It's
a standalone application that happens to be able to use a database
instead of SQL, but fundamentally it's still a standalone application.

The fact that the DATABASE can be accessed multi-user has nothing to do
with the fact that GnuCash was NOT designed to handle that and therefore
needs to protect its data from users who try to do it.

> We use the XML backend, and share it by versioning it in source
> control with mandatory locks. It's not perfect, and requires
> discipline to respect the lock, but it works between three different
> people sharing the responsibility to keep the accounts up to date.

And using SQL should be better -- but we still need to try to enforce
the sequentiality in order to prevent data loss.

> Regards,
> Graham

-derek
-- 
       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
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