It's more than that. It's actually a lot like distributed version control (a la git). When you ask the connection for the current value of the database, you get back a real value that will never change out from under you. This is very much akin to making a clone of a repository in git. This gives you the enormous power of speculation and experimentation within your application. You can do whatever you want with this database value and it will never affect anyone else nor be affected by anyone else.