Great read.<p>If someone is interested in similar text, though fiction, I liked Clive Cussler's "The Chase" (novel): <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(novel)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(novel)</a> (it's about a former bank robber who founded his own bank, in San Francisco at that timeframe til 1906)
I think every programmer knows that businesses love to take technical shortcuts and are willing to "leak" quality if it gets them an economic product (or profit) more quickly...<p>In a way, Eventual Consistency is just a way of making that work <i>for</i> you rather than trying to fight the tide. Just limit your exposure at the system-boundaries.
Why did he need a fast horse? Couldn't he have done the first withdrawal just <i>after</i> the books went out the door at one branch, then calmly gone over to the other branch for the 2nd withdrawal? No need to race the books, if the book transfer interval was only every few hours?