CST 363 - Week 6

Version Control

The main topic this week was regarding version control in databases. Or, more specifically, how databases can handle multiple concurrent transactions, while still maintaining the integrity of their data. Assignment 4 was an extension of our SimpleDB from last week, having us learn how to add basic version control functionality to our Database. This was done through a wrapper python file that mostly referred to classes defined in the sbd.py file from last week.  Sbdv.py used version control with an optimistic transaction log. Updates to rows in the database were first written to a transaction log with a record of what updates, inserts, and deletions were made to each row. A commit method was then called to fulfill each transaction. After every transaction, the version of the database is updated. This allows multiple transactions to occur at the same time without conflicts happening during commits.

Git, VIM, & Bash

Since this was our first assignment posted on Github, I used this assignment to get reacquainted with the workflow I learned at UCSC. After researching and finding out that Ubuntu and Bash are now available on Windows 10, I installed the Bash and Vim editors. I'm hoping that after using the rest of the program to get over the initial learning curve of this software, they will be more efficient than using GUI editors.