Major Changes To MySQL Coming Soon

Meltr writes: "This ZDNET article details some of the coming changes to the MySQL database server. In 4.0, to be released in mid-October: 'support for the Unicode character set, the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol, embedded database links and multitable updates' and in 4.1, to be released in December: 'nested queries and stored procedures'."

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[Anonymous Coward]

Universal Objects has also announced that their Unicode report server has been ported to Linux and is available now. Cheap, multilingual solutions might be what Linux needs for acceptance.. I belive we could beat Microsoft at the whole "total cost of ownership" game here.. What Unicode compliant database software is available free or cheap to use this with?

Re:real men use flat files

[elroyjenkins]

Real men also post under while logged in!


Did you just grab my ass?

Why MySQL ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, why ? Mysql is a very popular free sql database system , and I still have problems figuring out why.
It supports almost none of the sql features I need. The solution to my needs(which includes free/opensource) is PostgreSQL,
which do supports the features i require(subqueries, locking, stored procedures,views,triggers,other _real_ nice features..).
One point that often comes up is that mysql is very fast, and it is fast, but atleast for my projects only silghtly faster than postgresql(2-4%),
and in many special cases posgresql is way faster.
Also the point of mysql beeing very fast disappears if you use the locking features of mysql, BDB/Innodb tables.
For me, its postgres over mysql anytime.

Re:Why MySQL ?

[pere]

The answer is "because it does the job".

Most small projects does not need transactions, subqueries or locking. And to really take advantages of such features you need to have some good understanding of databases.

With mySQL you can actually make fearly decent, fearly fast and fearly stable application without using hours trying to design things optimal, (and actually without not really understanding what you are doing.)

If you worry about +2-4 percent performance, how to handle peeks of hundreds of hits a second... then you have several good databases to choose from.

If you should store a few thousand posts, and are hoping for a few hundred hits a day, and your web-application had deadline yesterday, and you are aout to start developing (90% of the web-application of today).... mySQL is a killer!

(You can use it for other things as well. And it does scale fairly well (so Im told)... but then you should consider several other good databases..like PostreSQL)

Re:Why MySQL ?

[brunes69]

I partialy agree wit this, but I would never base any application of mine on something as incomplete as MySQL (I too use PostgreSQL). Why do you ask? Simple. Who knows how large your project will get, or what substantial new features you will want to incorperate in the future. You may never need locking, but subqueries? C'mon, that is basic stuff. Sure you can get around needing them, but its a big pain in the butt and ends up being much moe inefficient. This is why I alays stick with the best product first, to leave my opions open, and won't have to re-do everything from scratch when I switch from MySQL (non SQL-92 standard) to any other DB.

Re:Why MySQL ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree that if it does the job, its ok.
However, from painful experience, one often dont
know the exact requirements of a project, or one
dont know how it will evolve. If it was based on
mysql you may face limitations in the future. If
you used another dbms you might get an easier job.

And thats where postgresql came in, I vaguely
heard about it, and decided to install and try it.
And i was happy, itwas just as easy as mysql, both
to install, use and administer.
To me it seems like mysql are beeing used beaues
its the big thing/buzzword, or they havnt heard
about anything else(except Oracle).
Do yourself a favour and use postgres from the
beginning.

Re:Why MySQL ?

[GooberToo]

Because it is fast.

Cough, cough. It depends. This by far is not an accurate statement without lots of qualifiers. To make it so, you'd need to quantify many of your project's environmental conditions. I'm assuming all of your projects are 100% readonly.

Because it does the job.

The same way MS Access "does the job", only, the Jet database is more advanced. Simply put, if you wouldn't use a Jet Database for your project, MySQL should not be used either. I'm serious. Any project you start and need to select a database, ask your self if you'd use a JetDB here. If the answer is, "no", then walk right on past MySQL too.

Becasue it is popular and well supported by the community. Because it is "out there", people see others using mysql and end up using the same.

That's true. I think if you look around, you'll find, to a slightly lesser degree, PostgreSQL is "out there" and being used by real live people too. There are books for it too and the community is pretty strong.

I for one like MySQL. I dont need subqueries for a simple website, and I sure as hell don't need transactions for it.

I always get confused when I hear people say this. If this is truely the case then you'd almost always better off NOT using any type of relational database at all. There's no point. Subqueries are faster, help ensure the validity of the result sets that you work with (dataset could change between the two queries you issue trying to work around this issue on MySQL). And, if you don't need transactions, locking, ref. integ. and your are only updating a single row in a single table or reading a single row from a single table, why are you using a relational database to begin with? It's much too slow compared to your options here.

Re:Um, transactions anyone?

[rycamor]

Eh...? MySQL has had transactions for several releases now. I know, it's not available for all table types... :-( (InnoDB, BerkelyDB tables...)

To me, the fundamental feature missing is foreign key constraint, which I see is not even mentioned among the new features.

Re:Um, transactions anyone?

[Osty]

With the introduction of the Berkely DB table type, MySQL gained transactional support. It'd be nice to have native transactions for all table types, but at least this is better than nothing at all. Of course, if you want to complain about useful-but-missing features, complain about decent stored procedure support (coming, but the keyword here is "decent" -- if they only support one language, like perl, then it becomes useless), foreign keys, subselects (apparently coming in 4.1), and triggers. Of course, the way the MySQL project seems to be going, they're going to end up reinventing the wheel originally designed by Oracle 20+ years ago, while steadfastly denying that the missing functionality is useful up until the point where they announce that they'll be adding said functionality.

The best opensource DBMS/R is here ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am quite frightened when i see people still using MySQL ...

Ok, it's a nice database but it lacks from major steps :

- fast and decent transactions
- procedures
- triggers
- views ... (AFAIR there is no views)

Why do not people user alternative database such as PostgreSQL or Interbase ?

For instance insterbase and its sister projects (IB Phoenix : http://www.ibphoenix.org/ , FireBird: http://firebird.sourceforge.net , ...)

The basic specs of interbase are :
- full SQL92 compliant (entry level)
- not fully SQL99 compliant

For instance you have :

- fast transactions
- super fast blob/clob feature
- procedure (full SQL92 here!!!)
- trigger
- strucutred data types
- JDBC2.0 driver (type 4 JDBC3.0 is underway ...)
- cool tools (admin, major crash fix and recovery stuffs ...)
- easy data deployment (thru .gdb files)

Under linux there are 2 architecture, the classical server and the super server (cf the docs).

There are also cool and nice free GUI admin tools such as IBAccess:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ibaccess/

All these stuffs are opensourced and free (as in beer) !

No more hesitation ... go for a powerfull database ;-)

Re:The best opensource DBMS/R is here ...

[Colin]

I use MySQL for one of my web based applications, and I use Oracle for others. For the one I use MySQL for, I chose it because:

- It's easy to run.
I don't have to do much (if any) maintenance and management - I don't need to check if redo logs are too small, don't need to check for extents growing out of control etc.

- It's fast.
For my application - with simple inserts and deletes, MySQL is really quick. That saves me money - I can get away with a single processor Linux box for my database server, rather than something much more expensive.

- I don't need the features of a larger database.
I'm using MySQL to store and retrive information - basically a distributed file system. I don't need clever locking, transactions, views, foreign keys, triggers, stored procedures. On the applications I do need those features, I use Oracle.

- It's cheap
I looked at PostgreSQL, but it was going to take me a while to figure out how to get it set up - I find MySQL very easy to install and get running. Oracle was going to be very expensive - and it's not that easy to install and get running properly.
When you add in the costs of installation, learning how the software behaves, and the management time in keeping the software running, MySQL (for me) came out as the most cost effective option.

Colin.

Re:The best opensource DBMS/R is here ...

[m_ilya]

I am quite frightened when i see people still using MySQL ...

Ok, it's a nice database but it lacks from major steps :

- fast and decent transactions
- procedures
- triggers
- views ... (AFAIR there is no views)

First of all MySQL does has robust transactions. InnoDB's table type really rocks. Probably it is not very stable yet (there was found some problems with blobs some time ago) but it becomes better and better.

As for procedures and triggers and all other simular stuff. I wonder if it is really important to have it. I've seen some projects with heavy usage of procedures, triggers and other stuff. All busness logic of applications was implemented by them. It was very unmaintanable. IMHO more powerfull approach is three-tear architecture where middle layer (outside database) implements all busness logic itself.

IMHO procedures are often overused. Probably they are required sometimes but only sometimes. If you think you need them than rethink you design. Maybe all logic you are going to implement with them should be implemented in middle layer?

Re:The best opensource DBMS/R is here ...

[chris.bitmead]

Why do you imply that postgresql is hard to setup?
It's very easy, a piece of cake. So you don't
need the features of postgresql. Does it hurt to
have them on hand if you need them in the future?

great to see progress!

[Lumpy]

This is great! When I forayed into the SQL land 3 years ago I dried postgreSQL first because it was a "pure" SQL that was a true GPL and free.. but honestly, MySQL is tons easier to set up and use and program for. So that is what I settled on, it just added a step for me, I had to show a client how to download and install it to meet the license requirement at that time.. (Shoulder driving, click there, click ok, now type rpm -i *.rpm.. cool I can take over now!) I use it extensively today, and the documentation seems to be greated for MySQL than postgreSQL. Is that a fact though? is there sources for postgreSQL for dummies? or nice comprehensive manuals? or 3rd party books?

Re:More vapourware

[OblongPlatypus]

What you're forgetting is that in many web-based applications, the data *doesn't matter* (not more than nightly backups will take care of, anyway). MySQL is perfect for a whole range of web-related work, and these new additions will make it even more useful.

And in reply to the parent of the parent of this post, I really don't see how the term vaporware fits here. Sure, MySQL is a different class of database than (for example) Postgres, but that doesn't make it a useless product. Besides, at the rate MySQL is going these days, I wouldn't be surprised if they could be considered up to par with Postgres in a few years. If they can keep the speed up there while adding new features, the competition will have a hard time... well, competing.

Why people use MySQL

[ACK!!]

It goes a little like this:

1. Someone needs a small easy to install database quick.
2. Sysadmin knows PostGres is superior but also knows that MySQL is dead easy to set-up quickly. He has set up MySQL before since someone told him how easy it was. He uses that.
3. People are so impressed in the organization that he got the thing up quickly they start suggesting MySQL for larger projects where it falls flat.
4. The organization gets turned off to Open-Source databases and chooses Oracle or DB2 instead totally bypassing PostGres which is sad.

In the end PostGres gets completely bypassed. Lots of people cut their teeth on MySQL so when someone needs a small database set up really quick they choose it. If more people used PostGres initially I think they would never look back. However, I understand immediately why MySQL is used so often.

Re:This is a lie.

[swillden]

Nobody stores critical data in Access.

Ahh, the naivete of the young...

People frequently do insane things like storing business-breaking data in access. And they absolutely refuse to listen to the $200 per hour consultant that tells them they're doing a very risky thing.