The MySQL Conference & Expo registration is now open.  This is the official MySQL conference put on jointly by MySQL and O'Reilly and once again, should be an excellent event.  There are more than 100 sessions focusing on a wide range of topics including the new Falcon storage engine, performance tuning, new features in MySQL 5.1, partitioning, monitoring and management, case studies, and more.  Many of these sessions are new for the first time, so even folks who have attended the conference in the past will benefit from many new topics. 

There are also more than a dozen tutorials on topics like scale out, Ruby on Rails, replication, high availability and writing your own storage engine (by MySQL technology guru …

• More on watching ActiveRecord This is one for my ~/.irbrc — now I can do stuff in script/console and see what SQL queries are actually generated without flipping to another tab. (tags: rails rubyonrails tips logging)

If you?ve been using MySQL for any time at all, you know that a unique advantage afforded MySQL users is the ability to use multiple storage engines to manage the underlying data stored on the server. This efficient and modular architecture provides large performance and manageability benefits for those wishing to specifically target a particular application need ? such as data warehousing, transaction processing, high availability situations, etc. ? while enjoying the advantage of utilizing a set of interfaces and services that are independent of any one storage engine. The MySQL server supplies engines that are internally developed, provided by third-party software vendors, and also allows a user to build their own storage engine if they desire.

Wondering what the Oracle announcement of Unbreakable Linux has done for Oracle, and to Red Hat? The results aren't pretty, but the company getting pounded might surprise you:

Note to Mr. Ellison: Better try a different strategy. This one is not working, as Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports.) And I'm not talking about Oracle providing commercial support for MySQL. I somehow think that will be even less successful.

Just work on supporting your own software.

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My MySQL Sandalcamp proposal made the cut for the upcoming MySQL Conference. I hope that I will see some of you down in Santa Clara in April.

One of our clients found a bug with dbms_scheduler: it logs a job as successful when a ORA-01403 is thrown.

SQL> create or replace procedure x_no_data_found is v_dummy varchar2(1); begin select dummy into v_dummy from dual [...]

So, in Europe the street name comes first, then the number of the building.
In the US the number of the building comes first, then the actual street, which makes it a little bit rougher to sort.

Imagine a table like this:

mysql> SELECT * FROM numsort;

+——+
| a |
+——+
| 5 |
| a |
| 2 |
| d |
| 22 |
| c |
| 33 |
| 3 |
+——+
8 rows in set (0.00 sec)

The desired order in this case would be 2, 3, 5, 22, 33, a, b, c, d.

mysql> SELECT * FROM numsort ORDER BY a;
+——+
| a |
+——+
| 2 |
| 22 |
| 3 |
| 33 |
| 5 |
| a |
| c |
| d |
+——+
8 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Ok, we’re far from what we’re …

Every so often someone will ask me "What is this pushbuild thing I
hear MySQL developers talk about?"

The answer is that it is an automated build system that we "push"
code into. It was written by Kristian Nielsen a little over a year
ago. When using BitKeeper you have to "push" code to another
repository. In CVS or Subversion you just commit to one repository,
BitKeeper put the concept of distributed versioning into people's
minds (and its a very powerful tool for distributed development). I
really can not imagine using a non-distributed revision control
system any longer.

What we look for in development, and releases, is a "green tree". The
nice thing about pushbuild is that I can see how my builds work on
different platforms. For example I don't do windows programming but
via pushbuild I can see if my code built on Windows. I've used …

rPath raises an additional $9.1M in funding…Solid shares its 2007 plans for MySQL…Novell launches a training program for Red Hat migrations…and more…

rPath Continues Momentum with Addition of $9.1M in Funding, rPath (Press Release)

Solid Unveils Plan To Deliver Additional Mission-Critical Database Capabilities To MySQL Users, Solid Information Technology (Press Release)

Novell launches New Training to Ease Red Hat-to-SUSE Linux Migration, Novell (Press Release)

Sun and …

So while flying to Boston I started thinking a bit more about how releases work in a calendar year and how open source releases work in general.

What made me first think about this was developer quorum.

What is developer quorum?

Developer Quorum is any period of time where you have enough developers to complete a release or undertake a major distribution of software. To release software you really must take it into account.

For a US/European company like MySQL we see two of these periods a year:

Last week of November through the Second Week of January.
June 20th through the first week of August.

These periods are a result of the cumulative nature of the holidays for multiple countries. While there are always people around, maybe up to two-thirds at any point, you will be missing critical people.

I've yet to see an influence by China, but …