distributed, long-term transactions made easy

Programming in 5 dimensions opens a new door in transaction processing. Each activity initially creates a new locus. Multiple activities are allowed, without constraint. When an activity completes, the locus is folded into another (the trunk?) locus. If there is conflict in the folding, either the activity can be repeated or a merge operation can occur.

Sounds like science fiction to me. Each event creates a new alternative universe.

Actually, this kind of transactional processing is already quite common as an alternative to locking when supporting multiple writers, though only for short-term transactions. But the implementation here is much simpler.

The basic idea is that two loci, with non-conflicting changes, can be combined. This is the inverse of a branch, but remember that I'm talking about low-level database operations rather than a CVS where these operations occur at a much higher level. (Innovation is largely about granularity.)

Bill