We had a question on AskTom the other day, asking us to explain what a “latch” was.
A simple metaphor sometimes does the trick 
The power of metaphor
Posted by Posted by Posted by Posted by Posted by Posted by We had a question on AskTom the other day, asking us to explain what a “latch” was.
A simple metaphor sometimes does the trick
Learning is not a spectator sport 
If someone ask me what is latch? This will be the answer I am going to use… 🙂
Hey Connor,
I remember seeing this metaphor in one of your older presentations (around 400 sildes, main point were 11g migration issues I think), which was basically just a photo of a toilet and the latch. I just burst into laughter even though I was on a train atm. It stuck with me, up to a point where now when I see a latch problem I immediately get a picture of a public toilet in my head. So yeah, it is an excellent metaphor. 🙂
By the way, I love these short blog posts you’ve been writing. I read them even though I don’t usually learn anything new from them, simply because they’re fun to read. Where someone else (including me) would need 5 pages to explain something, you only need a few paragraphs and a good example. And that’s very inspirational to me.
Cheers,
David
Thanks for the feedback David. Glad you enjoy the content as much as I enjoy producing it.
Excellent example usage 🙂
So what is up with all that “spinning” / waiting for a latch….
I can only think of someone outside the toilet. pacing around while holding his urgent need…
So you have to complain with the owner because he doesn’t have enough toilet for all.
Interesting metaphor ;). An ‘autonomous transaction’ comes to mind 😉 As well as a ‘blocking lock’, so we would need ‘a plumber’. And what if one acquires a lock and ends up in an infinite loop with a WHEN OTHERS THEN NULL?