Hi!
A:
It's easy to get fast results if you don't
care about your reads being
atomic (*), and I find it hard to believe they've managed to get
atomic reads without going through MySQL.
MySQL upper layers know nothing much about transactions, it is all engine-specific - BEGIN
and COMMIT processing is deferred to table handlers.
It would incredibly easy for them to implement repeatable read snapshots :) (if thats what
you mean by atomic read)
(*) Among other possibilities, just use MyISAM.
How is that applicable to any discussion?
Domas