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MySQL Website a Reflection of Values
I understand that MySQL as a company wants to recruit paying customers. However, as a community user I have a hard time finding what I want on the MySQL website. Today’s frustration is brought to you by trying to find the documentation.
Go ahead, hit http://www.mysql.com. From there, where do you go to find the documentation?
It’s not Services, not even Services -> Support.
According to Products, the community server is not even a product. How is a potential new user, who wants to learn about MySQL, supposed to know a community version exists? Here are the products listed on the Products page:
MySQL Enterprise
MySQL Enterprise Monitor
MySQL Cluster
MySQL Embedded Database
MySQL Database Drivers
MySQL Database Tools
Where’s “MySQL Database” on that list? A website user basically has to know what they’re looking for, since that page does not help find “the mysql database”. You can guess it’s the “MySQL Enterprise” — but you’d be wrong. Imagine if you’re a person unfamiliar with MySQL who has been told “go to the MySQL website and get the free version of the database, it’s great!”
OK, OK, I know, you’re saying “click on Downloads”. Which takes me to the “choose which version you want to download.” OK, nice for newbies, but really annoying for the experienced. Why aren’t the links to download at the top, with the explanations just underneath? A newbie would be presented with the links, think “I don’t know which to choose!” but then see that the descriptions are just underneath. An experienced user can just click and go.
This of course is made even more silly when you realize that the community download link simply scrolls down. Yes, that’s right, the community downloads immediately follow that chart of explanations. Which means that in the current state, when the link is at the bottom of the chart, the link points you to the next line. If the link is at the top of the page, at least there’s a reason for it — to scroll down past the explanations.
Now recall that the exercise was to find documentation. There is no way to download the documentation here.
I am a non-paying user, not a developer. Going to the “Developer Zone” is not intuitive for me. However, that is exactly where I need to be:
* DevZone
* Downloads
* Documentation
* Articles
* Forums
* Bugs
* Forge
* Blogs
Given that list of topics, why on earth is this section called the “Developer Zone”? (it’s a rhetorical question!) Sure, if I’m a software developer I might think it’s useful to me. On any other website “developer zone” is relegated to advanced users, or folks using some different part of the product than what most people use (think Apple’s Developer Connection).
Take a look at that list. On any other website, it would be under “Support” or “Help” or “Learn”.
No wonder folks have no idea that the forums exist, much less the Forge or Planet MySQL. If I was a new user to MySQL and I wanted to find the documentation, I’d be very unhappy.
Heck, I’m very unhappy anyway — what kind of company has a huge community of people supporting each other and contributing back to the company, and does not give people an easy way to find the community?
Liveblogging: Extending MySQL by Brian ?Krow? Aker
Liveblogging: Extending MySQL by Brian “Krow” Aker
Brian wins the award for “most frequent great quotes during a talk”.
Before MySQL 5.1 a UDF was the only way to extend MySQL.
All you need in a UDF is: init() execute() deinit()
my_bool id3_parse_init(UDF_INIT *initid UDF_ARGS *args, char *message)
UDF_ARGS tell you about incoming args
char *message is the output that might return
args->arg_count is the # of args
WARNING: use STRICT mode in MySQL, otherwise there are tons of silent failures.
“When you work on databases you start to put everything in databases. Tip, don’t put a DVD into a database, because really long BLOBs aren’t actually supported….”
In MySQL 5.1, you can now install plugins (example is memcache_servers plugin):
mysql> INSTALL PLUGIN memcache_servers SONAME 'libmemcache_engine.so'
In the plugin architecture, there’s a callback mechanism to call a structure and then the structure is self-hosted into the environment. mysql_declare_plugin() is usually found at the bottom of the file because that’s how Brian wrote the example….
A storage engine is really about connecting to anything.
MySQL has a parser, and optimizer, and a retrieve/store part, which talks to the storage engines. The engine interface is written in C++.
Quote about the BLACKHOLE storage engine: “It’s amazing how much money can be made out of something that does NOTHING.”
What about defining features?
tables_flags()
index_flags()
handlerton flags
Table object methods:
base_ext()
create()
delete_table()
rename_table()
optimize(), repair(), etc.
As you can see, the API is pretty specific to actions that are happening at the SQL layer.
Reads
rnd_init() — scan is about to begin
rnd_next() — get the next record
(rnd = random or read next data)
index_first() — index read is about to begin
index_next() — get the next record in the index
Writes:
write_row() — “here’s new data, please store this”.
delete_row()
update_row()
on delete or update, MySQL starts reading the rows and once the predicate matches, then the delete_row() or update_row() is called. update_row() will be passed the before and after image of the row.
What about information_schema?
The information_schema API is an easy way to get more information into the information_schema tables.
(there’s a really nice example of an information_schema plugin)
A quote about his code — “That in the middle there looks like a bug….but it’s never called, so that’s OK. That’s what I get for copying and pasting my own examples.”
The plugin is responsible for all the locking.
Daemon plugins created because otherwise people would “bastardize the storage engine plugins.”
A daemon plugin has full access to the server internals, and it is a simple interface to be able to extend.
“If you’re really going to shoot yourself in the foot, you really want to go full blast.”
UDP Daemon just allows UDP packets to be put into the db (instead of TCP/IP with its darn authentication schema). Simplest interface to MySQL that exists. No connector, just UDP. The point is you can put other listeners to MySQL, such as an HTTP listener.
Daemon plugins are also a way to
MySQL March Boston User Group + MySQL/Sun Mashup World Tour
Replication Presentation at the November 2007 Boston MySQL User Group
Patrick Galbraith, former MySQL employee who helped write replication, came to the November 2007 Boston MySQL User Group and did a fantastic presentation on replication, including showing how to set up replication and walking us through the steps in real-time, setting up an example server.
Smaller, 320x240, 293M WMV file for download
References mentioned in the video:
Brian Aker's DBIx::Password
Giuseppe Maxia's article about federated tables -- I think that's the right one, feel free to comment if it's not.
MySQL Proxy Presentation at the September 2007 Boston MySQL User Group
I have finally managed to watch and slightly edit the September 2007 Boston MySQL User Group presentation I did on the MySQL Proxy.
It's geared towards beginners, and has lots of examples, including explaining some of the examples that come bundled with the MySQL Proxy.
Download video (.wmv file, 612 Mb)
Download video (.wmv file, 76.10 Mb)
Enjoy!
Some resources:
Presentation Slides PowerPoint (ppt) or PDF or Flash (swf) More »
Manual:$wgGroupPermissions - MediaWiki
April 2007 Boston MySQL User Group Video
Using MySQL As Active DBMS for Monitoring Applications — Jacob Nikom.
Jacob presented this as a special preview at the April 2007 Boston MySQL User Group, and then presented it at the 2007 MySQL Users Conference and Expo.
The last in the “better late than never” series….
Download from http://www.technocation.org/videos/2007_04BostonUserGroup.wmv
or view right here: