For those of you who want to use MySQL 5.1 on etch, I prepared a backport from the experimental package of MySQL 5.1.22-rc. It's available for amd64 and i386, but will not be uploaded to the backports.org archive until there's a stable release in lenny.

Take a look at the list of Open Issues in MySQL 5.1 before upgrading your servers.

Test-Commander Eric was working on the log-replay task and as he is at my place right now, we have put our heads together to get a working prototype together.

---
-- log queries going throw the proxy on request and
-- provide a commands to work on the logged queries
--
-- * PROXY SET GLOBAL replay.log_queries = (true|false)
--   log queries sequentially (used by SAVE)
-- * PROXY SET GLOBAL replay.fake_mysqld = (true|false)
--   return the logged resultset for known queries
--
-- * QUERYLOG SAVE INTO "filename"
--   dump the queries into a file and reset the log buffer
-- * QUERYLOG LOAD FROM "filename"
--   load logged queries back into the query_log (used by the
--   fake_mysqld)
-- * QUERYLOG SHOW

What is this useful for ? ... hmm ...

The first goal is creating a fake-mysqld allowing us to run proxy tests without have to have a mysqld on the box.

As a proof-of-concept we logged the SHOW GLOBAL STATUS going through the proxy …

I've been thinking a lot lately on coding habits that I have been picked up in recent years. Reasons I write in the way that I do:

Code defensively. Other people will break stuff (and sometimes the other people happens to be me...).
Think about merges. Code I write will go into a code repository of some sort. Either I or someone else will need to do a merge at some point. Make merges happen without issue.
Types! Types! Think thoroughly about problems of size.
Never use globals unless they are completely static (aka think thread safe from the beginning)

So something I do not do:

   int foo, bar;

I do this:

  int foo;
  int bar;

Why? Because if I delete one of the lines, I then don't have to worry about a bad merge. Any of the revision systems I use can merge this stuff without a problem.

Other …

Last post was about Rainbow testing. So that's old news, and I lost count of the number of bugs it found, and have been fixed. Probably 30+ crashes.

Now, I have to put together all these odds & ends of code I wrote disparately over the last 18 months into a single collection to enable complete end-to-end testing.

I have now got roughly the following:

o) random table maker
o) query maker based on any tables, (using predefined rules)
o) data generator for any tables
o) complete charset collection for each valid character
o) database of mysql functions, data types
o) multi-threaded testing environment for any queries
o) query results comparer for any queries
o) rainbow, which will provide help in making good coverage of functions, etc.

What's needed still? Well, I would like 56 hours in a day ... More posts later when v0.001 of the integrated is …

For the last eight years or so I've wanted this sort of device (with of course the design needs going up over time).

Portable Server:
Runs Linux
Does not use batteries but instead uses wall power.
No monitor, just ethernet (use a boot loader via a web browser)
Does have USB (need this to load the OS via CDROM, but this could be skipped...)
Is under five pounds.
Solid state disk.
Suspend to disk.
Five pounds or less.
Dimensions of a book, but can be a bit thicker (needs to fit into my backpack)
64bit, 4 or more cores
4 or more gigs of RAM
Switching power supply (aka can use anywhere in the world)
Wireless would be a nice "have". I'll string cables though if need be...

I feel like technology is getting closer to my needs...

I trust no development that is done on 32bit machines with single processors, and if your tests …

It's great to be king (aka "Oracle"), but apparently the peasants are secretly in revolt. According to a survey of the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) [PDF], open source adoption is rampant within the rank-and-file of Oracle users...including widespread adoption of MySQL.

Uptake is still small, but the cracks in the part iron, part clay feet are starting to spread:

There was an increase in the number of organizations reporting that they are running over half of their applications on open source software, increasing from 9 percent in 2006 to 13 percent in the 2007 report. Currently, more than one-third of the respondents report that they have deployed an open source database in production, with nearly three-quarters of that group having …

The Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) recently surveyed their members about open source and has now published their findings. A few highlights: -More than one third of the respondents reported that they have deployed an open source database in production, which is a higher rate than for open source tools, frameworks or applications. -Nearly three-quarters of that group have MySQL installed -The availability of "express editions" from Oracle, Microsoft and others has not slowed down adoption of open source databases -Over 50% plan on increasing their use of open source software in the next year -63% of those using open... READ MORE

Saugatuck Technology has some advice for proprietary vendors looking to survive the open-source threat to their businesses. Why? Oh, because enterprises are moving to open source in droves, with Saugatuck reporting that "Open source software's presence will increase from approximately 10% of key enterprise on-premise software in 2007, to between 15% and 20% by 2010."

According to a Saugatuck survey:

• 25% of enterprises "always consider and evaluate open source alternatives when planning to acquire new systems, applications, databases or software tools."
  
• 40% "frequently" consider open source alternatives for the same.
  
• 50% report that open source software is widely used within their enterprises.
  
• 60% state that open source software delivers significant business value to their enterprises. …

(photo by Colin Charles @ the Melbourne MySQL user group meeting last week)

A few weeks ago I held a MySQL University Session about MySQL Proxy. Thanks to our docs team we now have

• the IRC log,
• the slides and
• the voice recording

online.

If you are interested in writing your own scripts for the proxy, check out the Writing LUA Scripts for MySQL …