[exabrial]

>That my program terminates and must be restarted by an external process

Your program terminates for absolutely _regular_ SQL signals that are literally documented in the API? This is a 'not knowing how the tool works', knowledge comprehension issue. This is like complaining your car wont run because you have to put gas in it.

>The problem is that most SQL database engines acquire locks in the order that the rows are read, not in the order that they are sorted.

Most in fact are undefined. Read order is a convenient optimization.

> So lock ordering depends on the query plan, not on the query itself.

Right, so don't do that.

My example is 100% deterministic. Go try it right now on your favorite ANSI Sql Database ;) It works every single time.