Hi!
I suppose it's possible in theory, but in any case, it's not what they're doing. They *are* going through MySQL, via the HandlerSocket plugin.
After reading the code I can sure correct myself - they are calling into some of MySQL things (e.g. for table open), but everything else is table handler interfaces :-) Though I guess what I mean "going through MySQL" and you have in mind are entirely different topics :)
I wonder if they'd get much different performance by just using prepared statements and read committed isolation, with the transactions spanning multiple requests. The tables would only get locked once per transaction, right?
They wouldn't gain too much of perf with PS, transaction establishment is quite cheap in MySQL, especially compared to other vendors. Do note, prepared statements don't prepare query plan for you - it is reestablished at every execution, neither it does have open table handlers, IIRC - generally you just don't have to reparse the text.
It was an example of a way to get fast results if you don't care about your reads being atomic.
InnoDB is faster than MyISAM at high performance workloads.
Domas