Summary of "Magma notes" issues

goran.krampe at bluefish.se goran.krampe at bluefish.se
Sat Jul 10 23:23:00 UTC 2004


Hi guys!

Avi Bryant <avi at beta4.com> wrote:
> On Jul 10, 2004, at 12:36 PM, Jochen Riekhof wrote:
> > Hi Avi...
> >
> >> Having a process die suddenly does not require hardware failure.  
> >> Operating systems kill processes all the time.  Not to mention 
> >> sysadmins.  If I can't "killall -9 squeak" without fearing for my 
> >> data, that's a big problem.  Again, I would be much happier if you 
> >> seemed to be acknowledging the problem rather than explaining it 
> >> away.
> >
> > uh oh. kill -9 is NEVER a good idea and will almost certainly corrupt 
> > data in any database app (and many others) as it kills a process 
> > UNCONDITIONALLY (without any possible intervention by the killed 
> > process). I don't use Mac/Next systems since 1991, but as OS-X is 
> > based on BSD, it is very unlikely to handle kill -9 differently.
> 
> I know what kill -9 does.  That's why I mentioned it - it's the worst 
> case scenario.  And yes, I do expect database apps (not all apps) to be 
> able to be kill-nined without corrupting data.  Heck, I expect to be 
> able to kick the plug out of the wall and not corrupt data.  Losing the 
> current transaction is to be expected, of course.

We all know that having a proper transaction log is what we want,
otherwise the "pulling the plug" scenario obviously will not be handled.
And I know it is high up on the todo list for Magma.

At the same time I can understand that Chris wanted Magma to "work"
before adding that to the picture.

Regarding you two guys obviously not communicating so good :) with each
other - well, I for one appreciate what you are doing Avi (detailed
testing) and I am sure Chris does too. You came on a bit hard a few
times so Chris got defensive, and now Chris, accidentally I think,
sounded a bit like your problems aren't "for real".

So to *both* of you: lighten up, cool down, have fun. :) This is Squeak
after all!

And now don't jump on me - I like both of you! :)

regards, Göran



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