Another problem that you could face with this approach is that when a
user retrieves data, you are not sure as to if they retrieve it for
update or for display only. Also, some IDEs allow the user to retrieve
multiple records from the database into a local buffer allowing the
user to scroll through them locally rather then keeping cursors open on
the database. The buffers can then be updated with a large transaction
at the end updating all changes for all records at once. Sort of the
same approach users take when updating a spreadsheet or word document.
Open the file, make changes then save the changes.

All this needs to be taken into concideration when deciding on the
locking mechanism used in your applications.

--
David Rowland
MS SQL Server DBMonitor author
http://dbmonitor.tripod.com