NoSQL and transactions
One of my long running habits when dealing with databases has been to use transactions. Transactions simplify handling errors in complex, multi-record operations.
More recently, I’ve been using transactions to wrap external API calls that I also need to store data about. External APIs fail. For that matter, internal APIs fail too, so let’s simplify that: APIs fail. Sometimes for no good reason.
Accordingly, it’s necessary to be able to fail gracefully in the face of such circumstances. Failing gracefully includes not only rendering meaningful error messages, but also not leaving local data in an unexpected state.
Transactions provide a simple, clean way to resolve this issue too. And they seem all but indispensable when combining multi-record operations with APIs.
Lately I’ve been doing more work with NoSQL databases. They’re fantastic for certain use cases. But the near universal lack of transaction support is annoying at best.
So now the challenge is how to work around the overall issue and provide as robust an experience as possible within the local app.
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