In the next proxy release we introduce plugins, we talked about it already in MySQL Proxy: a chassis and a mysql server. Take a look at http://svn.mysql.com/svnpublic/mysql-proxy/trunk/plugins/ and check out:

• proxy
• admin
• debug

each of them sharing the common code that is provided by the chassis.

The debug plugin is a lua shell with a mysql-protocol ... well, just read on ;)

The purpose of the plugin is to be able to introspect the proxy at runtime. If it is loaded you can connect to port 4043 and execute lua code inside the proxy core:

$ mysql --user=root --password=secret --port=4043 --host=192.168.2.113
root@192.168.2.113:4043 [(none)]> return 1;
+------+
| lua …

Firefox has been my steady web companion since version 1.0 (and Mozilla before that). For some time now I wanted to try Firefox 3. I was reluctant to abandon Firefox 2, because of the unavailability of most add-ons. I was especially missing the Google Bar, which I have been using on a regular basis.
However, a few days ago I found a replacement. GoogleBar Lite is almost like the original, minus some feature that I wasn't using anyway.
So I have been using Firefox 3 for a while, and I noticed better performance, and no trouble. The additional features are cool, like the Most Visited pull down menu or the location bar integrated with history and search.
Firefox enthusiasts want to set a …

De facto standards are the only ones that matter.

That's a bit of a truism in the technology world - well intentioned standards bodies and departments of justice can do their best, but at the end of the day, volume deployment is the only setter of standards. Ubiquity trumps policy, just about every time.

To that point, I was on a panel recently, discussing the impact of technology on the world's more rapidly developing economies (what's often referred to as "BRICA," or Brazil, Russia, India, China and Africa).

One of the speakers referenced an interesting shift in the traditional media industry: western companies were turning their attention toward the developing world. GDP growth wasn't drawing their attention - as much as demographics. Teenagers and those in their early twenties represent the biggest media buyers in …

Yesterday I took a more serious look at Google App Engine, I got a developer account some weeks ago.

After going though the getting started demo some time ago, I chose an idea for a FaceBook Application and started in true eXtreme Programming (XP) style (i.e. What’s the bare minimum required for first iteration). I taught myself some Python and within just a few minutes had some working data being randomly generated totally within the development SDK environment On my MacBook. I was not able to deploy initially via the big blue deploy button, the catch is you have to register the application …

I have tables that should be 1:1 relations but occasionally, they become mismatched, one table having more records than the other. I have been wondering which is the most optimal way to delete things like this.

I have a delete using a join (item_id is primary key):

mysql> delete from items_keys using items_keys left join items using (item_id) where items.item_id is NULL;

vs. using a subquery:

mysql> delete from items_keys where item_id not in (select item_id from items);

Sometimes, the 2nd seems faster, but using a join seems more orthodox to me. I'm curious what people think about this.

If I make these into select queries (instead of delete) and run explain, I get:

mysql> explain select count(*) from items_keys left join items using (item_id) where items.item_id is …

PostgreSQL is a sleeping giant that is waking up. And instead of wondering around sleepy, they seemed to be jumping forwards in what seems leaps to the other guys, but are just natural steps for them. Heh, I seem to be in a dramatic poetic mood today, but I just wanted to get across with how impressed I am with what is going on with the PostgreSQL community, ever since version 8.0. To me PostgreSQL 8.0 was so critical since with it one of the key obstacles to more wide spread adoption was removed: There was finally a native easy to install version of PostgreSQL for windows. Not that I know many people that deploy on windows, but I do know a ton that develop on windows (which included me back then).

Anyways, since then they have been adding more and more features at a pace that is mind boggling compared to what MySQL seems to be doing with much greater ressources. They are opening up as the same time too, which only seems to be accelerating …

I have been having a serious look at the event scheduler in MySQL 5.1 lately, and I thought I would share some of my initial impressions. There is no doubt that having an event scheduler is a great bonus for the database. It's usefulness in the enterprise may be limited. While we are preparing to move forward with it, it hasn't been without struggle. I will describe the pros and cons we've encountered so far.

I haven't really followed SourceLabs for a little while now, and yet, strangely enough, they've been doing new and interesting things even without me watching ;-). SourceLabs "Self-Support Suite for Linux and Open Source Java" caught my eye, so I thought I'd learn more about it. I watched a demo that began with the slogan: "We're IT people...we don't call support". Made me laugh out loud... The useful thing about the Self-Support Suite is that it adds diagnostics to your applications. When developers have a support issue, the diagnostics results are used to search for the similar problem *and* the... READ MORE

I just arrived in Boston. My login at the Diesel Cafe is still good. I forgot to bring my Charlie Card, so I ended up buying another one. Oh well, I'm sure I'll be back.

The other MySQL PS guy shows up this afternoon sometime. The gig starts tomorrow.

JetBlue is the win for seat pitch. Unlike AA or NWA, my knees were not jammed into the back of the seat in front of me. Unfortunately, I ended up in possibly the worse seat for a red-eye: middle seat in front of the exit row. Thus I couldn't lean against the bulkhead, and I couldn't recline the seat. My own fault too, TripIt had a link to a good site for seating advice, and I didn't check it. If I had been paying attention, I could have switched to a window seat 2/3s the way back, and slept much better.

There is some sort of big Sun/MySQL/OpenSource business cocktail thing here in …