[teraflop]

Having serializable transactions is equivalent to adding "FOR UPDATE" to every SELECT statement, so it sounds like CockroachDB already does what you want.

A typical RDBMS will prevent conflicts by forcing queries to block until they can be executed in a conflict-free ordering. CockroachDB instead detects conflicts after the fact and prevents inconsistent transactions from committing, forcing them to retry. The end result -- that is, the set of possible outcomes of a series of transactions -- is the same, but the performance characteristics will be different.

[ams6110]

GP said that the use case does not require locking, but in PgSQL (which was mentioned) or Oracle, it does. The default transaction isolation level is not serializable. You don't read uncommitted updates, but reads are not repeatable unless you explicitly ask for that. If you do something like this (in a transaction):

   select ... from T where <condition>;
   ...
   update T ... where <condition>;
   commit;

there is no guarantee that the row you are updating is the same as the one you selected, unless you add "for update" to the select.

Also note that two successive SELECT commands can see different data, even though they are within a single transaction, if other transactions commit changes after the first SELECT starts and before the second SELECT starts.

-- http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/transaction-is...

A query acquires no data locks. Therefore, other transactions can query and update a table being queried, including the specific rows being queried. Because queries lacking FOR UPDATE clauses do not acquire any data locks to block other operations, such queries are often referred to in Oracle as nonblocking queries.

-- http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14220/consis...

[teraflop]

Sorry, I don't understand this comment because I can't tell if you're disagreeing with me about anything.

> GP said that the use case does not require locking, but in PgSQL (which was mentioned) or Oracle, it does.

Right, it does in a typical RDBMS, but not in CockroachDB. The definition of an isolation level is defined in terms of what interactions are possible between concurrent successful transactions. Locks, or the lack of locks, are an implementation detail.

> The default transaction isolation level is not serializable. ... Also note that two successive SELECT commands can see different data, even though they are within a single transaction, if other transactions commit changes after the first SELECT starts and before the second SELECT starts.

I agree. If you set the isolation level to "serializable", such anomalies aren't possible, even if you don't use FOR UPDATE.