Re^4: Perl/PostgreSQL niche

[dbwiz]

But from what I have read, it aims and misses

You haven't read the entire story, I'm afraid.

MySQL programs are required to lock the entire table to perform updates.

That is not correct. Since version 3.23, MySQL has had the capability of locking at record level, using InnoDB tables.

I am administering an application where a MySQL database handles several thousand of concurrent updates, using transactions and referential integrity, without effort, providing a high level of efficiency.

[merlyn]

Even record-level locking is not as good as MVCC though. Yes, it's a start, but it's not all the way there.

[perrin]

MySQL has had MVCC for several years. That's how the InnoDB engine works.

[dbwiz]

MVCC Multi-Version Concurrency Control is just a fancy name to signify transactions at "Repeatable Read" and "Serializable" isolation levels. I didn't care to mention all the manual to you. Just the basic facts.

InnoDB has MVCC without that name. It provides full and reliable ACID compliant transactions. That's enough for me. If the fancy name is not in the manual, who cares?

[perrin]

InnoDB is often referred to as having MVCC, so I don't think there's any reason to avoid the name. In addition to making those isolation levels possible, it allows readers to get a consistent state without waiting for writers, increasing the scalability of the system.