Be conscious of implicit transaction boundaries when working with databases. Programming constructs can create unexpected transaction scopes that affect behavior and performance. For example, in Python, the `with` block for database connections implicitly starts a transaction, causing all operations within the block to execute in a single transaction: ```python # CAUTION: All operations execute in one transaction with db.connect() as conn: conn.execute("INSERT INTO table1 VALUES (1)") conn.execute("INSERT INTO table2 VALUES (2)") # Both inserts committed or rolled back together ``` Similarly, be aware of which database commands create transaction boundaries. Commands like `CHECKPOINT` and `COMMIT` flush WAL logs, while others may have different transactional behavior: ```sql -- Both sufficient to flush current WAL: CHECKPOINT; COMMIT; -- Better than using pg_switch_wal() in many cases: SELECT pg_current_wal_insert_lsn(); CHECKPOINT; ``` Choosing appropriate transaction boundaries improves reliability, performance, and maintainability of database operations.