What is the CAP Theorem?

Updated Apr 28, 2026

Short answer

Consistency, Availability, and Partition Tolerance: a distributed system can only provide two of the three.

Deep explanation

Exploring concurrency control. How MVCC (Multi-Version Concurrency Control) works to allow readers and writers to operate without blocking each other.

Real-world example

Banking systems using SERIALIZABLE isolation to prevent double-spending.

Common mistakes

  • Over-indexing tables which slows down INSERT/UPDATE operations.

Follow-up questions

  • What is Dirty Read?

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