Understanding Transactions and Locking

Now that we’ve been introduced to PostgreSQL 17 and all the new shiny features it brings to the table, we want to focus our attention on the next important topic. Locking is a vital concept for any kind of database. It is not enough to understand how locking works just to write proper or better applications – it is also essential from a performance point of view and, therefore, proper locking behavior will directly translate to an excellent user experience. Without handling locks properly, your applications might not only be slow – they might also behave in very unexpected ways (for example, timeouts, unpredictable results, and a lot more). In my opinion, locking is the key to performance. Why is that the case? There is no slower form of execution than waiting on something. Even more CPUs will not speed up waiting. Therefore, understanding locking and transactions is important for administrators and developers alike.

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