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:

>> Why not?
>
> Because a situation arises when both of you need to make writes. Which
> copy is the authoritative copy? Using svn alleviates this somewhat,
> but isn't ideal.

The authoritative copy belongs to whomever has the "write token".

> It is really easy to silently lose transactions, if a mixup occurs
> over who holds the master copy of the data file.

Indeed, which is why the "here be dragons!" warnings..

>>> The fact that gnucash can be asked to save the file in text/xml
>>> helps,
>>> because you can version this in something like svn. But versioning a
>>> database isn't easy at all.
>>
>> Why do you need versioning?  Versioning is overkill for data sharing.
>
> It prevents the situation where I add a transaction, then you add a
> transaction, silently overwriting mine.

That shouldn't happen if only one person can access the data file.

> Not only is the data wrong, it is silently wrong without warning.

Well, it shouldn't be silent..  You should have been warned that the
data file was in use.

-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
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available