Understanding Locking: Pessimistic and Optimistic Approaches
In the world of concurrent programming and database management, locking mechanisms are crucial to ensure data consistency and integrity. Two primary approaches to locking are pessimistic and optimistic locking. Each has its own use cases, advantages, and disadvantages. In this blog post we will understand of these two approaches, along with the real-world examples and an introduction to the Compare-and-Swap (CAS) mechanism. Pessimistic Locking Pessimistic locking is a strategy where a resource is locked as soon as a transaction starts and remains locked until the transaction is completed. It has been called “pessimistic” because of the assumption that conflicts between concurrent transactions do occur frequently. ...