Ben Darnell on foreign keys, isolation levels, and Van Halen | RoachFest 2023

Description

What does the iconic rock band Van Halen and their bizarre embargo against brown M&Ms have to do with foreign keys and transaction isolation levels? And what could this possibly teach you about database trust? In this talk from RoachFest 2023, Cockroach Labs Co-Founder and Chief Architect Ben Darnell explores how features like foreign key constraints — which may not seem very important by themselves — serve as indicators of how well a database performs on critically important tasks. Ben Darnell on foreign keys, isolation levels, and Van Halen 00:00 Welcome/Introduction 00:15 What was Van Halen brown M&M's policy in their rider? 02:02 Why foreign key constraints are similar to Van Halen's brown M&M rule 02:20 What are foreign key constraints? 04:49 INSERT with foreign key constraints 05:21 Manual foreign key constraints 06:55 Application level constraints 07:57 Concurrency (Safe in SERIALIZABLE isolation) 09:23 Explicit locking 11:26 What do foreign key constraints have to do with Van Halen? #foreignkey #transaction #databasetutorial #cockroachdb