If you use MySQL for the backend of your site, you know there's been a lot of new advances in the latest version of their software - some things that have been missing that the other RDBMS have had for a while. One of these things, transactions, is a little tricky to get a handle on, but this new article from DevShed hopes to help.

Despite MySQL's numerous strengths at the time - speed being the primary one - very few people looked at it as a viable alternative to enterprise-scale RDBMSs like Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server; rather, it was considered competent for small and medium-scale applications, but inadequate for large-scale enterprise deployment. Today, however, things have changed. MySQL is now in use in more than 30,000 installations across the planet.[...]. One of the newest features in MySQL, and one of the most frequently-requested ones on the MySQL wishlist, is transactions.

In part one of this two-part tutorial, they step you through what transactions are, how "ACID" compliant MySQL is, and, finally, an example complete with sample tables and commands for every step of the way. Transactions can be quite an asset for anyone out there, especially those that might not be able to afford Oracle (or one of the other "big boys") but need this functionality.