Linux vs FreeBSD, vi vs emacs, MySQL vs PostgreSQL, your habit or favorite technology vs another’s. At the end of the day there is no winner, just a matter of preference for the task at hand. I learned C++ 13 years ago, I forgot most of my C++ knowledge 10 years ago, I discouraged the use of C++ in this period in between, and in the past year I’ve been re-learning C++ (mostly due to Drizzle). So what did I use after unlearning C++ 10 years ago? I wrote everything in C (and by everything I mean this was my performance programming language of choice). This worked quite well, but it’s an interesting evolution that I think is now coming full circle.

When I first started programming C, it was a bit clumsy, and I look back at my old code and cringe. I began to develop a certain programming style that can best be described as object-oriented C programming due to the conventions used. The structs, functions that operated on those structs, and …

There has been a lot of talk lately about the “Open Source Cloud.” What will it look like, who will be behind it, and can I use it now? These were hot topics at OSCON, and Stephen O’Grady had two excellent posts on them recently as well (one, two). As many other folks do, I see a few major drivers of this: the need for private clouds, the prevention of vendor lock-in (proprietary services), and open source hackers just wanting to be able to extend and fix the source code. Some layers of this open source cloud stack are further along than others, and I’m going to attempt to outline what I’ve found so far along with what I think is missing.

Virtual Machine …

I’m going to be giving a talk at the PHP user group here in Portland, OR on August 11th. Details can be found here. If you’re in the Portland area please join the group and come check it out! This will be similar to the Boston MySQL Meetup group talk I gave earlier this month with Patrick, but with more focus on PHP.

There is a lot happening with Gearman right now. Last week at OSCON we received quite a bit of good feedback with the project which will certainly help direct our priorities moving forward. In the past couple weeks we’ve had the following Gearman releases:

• Gearman C Server and Library 0.9 – This added libsqlite3 and libpq (PostgreSQL) persistent queue support. Thanks to Cory Bennett for the SQLite patch!
• Gearman PHP Extension 0.5.0 – This release includes a few more functions from the C library and bug fixes. Thanks James!
• Gearman Perl XS 0.4 – This release includes a few more functions from …

Stealing the announcement news from Selena’s blog post:

I’m happy to announce that Portland, OR will be host to the next OpenSQL Camp, Portland. We’ll be holding it November 14-15, 2009.

Patterned after the first Open SQL camp held in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, in November 2008, we’re inviting any and all database practitioners (even the non-SQL, non-relational ones!) to join us for two days of deep database geeking.

To quote:

“Attendees of this conference are mostly open source developers and end users/open source enthusiasts. The goal of this event is to spread the word about the vibrant communities and large ecosystems around Open Source Databases and to educate the attendees about what alternatives exist to …

Similar to the MySQL and Drizzle user defined functions for Gearman, we now have PostrgeSQL functions too! These allow you to submit jobs to the job server from within your SQL query, trigger, or stored procedure. Here’s a snippet of how this looks in PostgreSQL:

shell$ psql test
test=# SELECT gman_do('reverse', 'Hello World!');
   gman_do
--------------
 !dlroW olleH
(1 row)

test=#

Special thanks to Selena Deckelmann for helping get these working!

I’ll be talking about the latest features in Gearman along with covering a few Gearman-powered applications tomorrow, July 14th, at 10AM Pacific time. Follow this link for details on how to sign up: Gearman: New Features and Applications for Distributed Job Queuing

Brian Aker and I will also be talking about Gearman at the PostgreSQL pgDay San Jose on Sunday, July 19th, and at OSCON the week after. See the Gearman presentations page for more information.

Version 0.4 of libdrizzle has been released. This was mostly a maintenance release with build system changes and small bug fixes. This is the client and protocol library for Drizzle and MySQL that provides both client and server interfaces.

Version 0.4.1 of the Drizzle PHP Extension has also been released. James Luedke has moved development and releases of the extension into PECL, and has also fixed a number of bugs, extended the interface, and worked with the PHP/PECL developers to get the extension up to the proper PHP coding standards. Thanks James!

Version 0.8 of the Gearman C Server and Library has been released. This includes basic HTTP protocol support, build system improvements, and bug fixes.

Version 0.4.0 of the Gearman PHP Extension has also been released.

If you want to learn more about Gearman, be sure to check out the upcoming Boston MySQL Meetup, MySQL Webinar, or the one of the events at OSCON (tutorial, session, and …

I’ll be heading back to my home state (Maine) this week for a visit, and while I’m back there Patrick Galbraith and I will be talking at the Boston MySQL Meetup Group on Monday night about Drizzle, Gearman, and how to combine the two with projects like Narada. If you are in the Boston area, be sure to check it out!