Sort of true -- for the InnoDB engine SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table is more complicated because each transaction has its own view of the table. So unlike MyISAM (

Sort of true -- for the InnoDB engine SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table is more complicated because each transaction has its own view of the table. So unlike MyISAM (which uses one big table-level lock to guarantee consistency), it can't store a row count on a per-table basis.