This is, of course, about Pessimistic and Optimistic--the two concurrency control interfaces used in database products. The idea is simple--or not, depending whether you confuse it with something else or not. Very often it is being confused with another pair of alternative choices in concurrency control: single-version (update-in-place) or multiversion concurrency control (MVCC). This is because of some natural predisposition: the pessimistic approach is typically used with update-in-place methods, while MVCC leans towards the optimistic approach. However, it does not have to be that way always because, for example, in the Solid's native product, solidDB, the choice of Pessimistic and Optimistic is given with both the mutiversioning disk-based engine and update-in-place in-memory engine. And, because the Solid's disk-based engine is available now under MySQL, the choice is extended to MySQL users, too.
So, what is Pessimistic? That is very …
[Read more]