When InnoDB became the default MySQL engine about 10 years ago I soon saw that OPL_update was taking 50-100 times longer than before (on my hardware) so I switched the default engine to MyISAM in my install instructions. Since then people have specified MyISAM for virtually all WeBWorK database tables (actually I believe all except the OPL_global_statistics table). This is now done in two places in the config files, one for course database tables and the other for the OPL tables.
Recently I tried running OPL_update on a virtual server with the latest version of MySQL (8.0.23), Ubuntu 20.04, WeBWorK 2.15, etc. using both MyISAM and InnoDB. Using the MyISAM engine, it took 3 hr and 7 min. Using the InnoDB engine, it took 1 hr and 3 min. Not surprisingly, things have changed a lot in ten years.
I think we should give serious thought to making InnoDB the default engine.
Arnie
Recently I tried running OPL_update on a virtual server with the latest version of MySQL (8.0.23), Ubuntu 20.04, WeBWorK 2.15, etc. using both MyISAM and InnoDB. Using the MyISAM engine, it took 3 hr and 7 min. Using the InnoDB engine, it took 1 hr and 3 min. Not surprisingly, things have changed a lot in ten years.
I think we should give serious thought to making InnoDB the default engine.
Arnie