Learn how atomicity prevents your data from getting stuck in impossible states.
Let's say you're building Instagram and a user posts a photo. Behind the scenes, your system needs to:
What happens if the system crashes after step 1 but before step 2?
Without atomicity: The photo exists but the count is wrong.
User's profile shows "5 posts" but when you scroll, you find 6 photos. This inconsistency breaks user trust.
With atomicity: Either both operations succeed, or neither happens. It's impossible to have partial updates.
Atomicity means your never gets "stuck in the middle" of an operation.
Atomicity like a light switch - it's either completely on or completely off, never halfway.
"Atomicity ensures that your database never tells a half-truth - operations either complete entirely or never happened at all."
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