YAMQ (yet another MySQL question) came up at work this past week. Some of our old data warehousing libraries work under the assumption that MySQL can only handle 16 indexes (built during the early 3.23.x days). So the question is how many indexes can a single table have these days?

This is similar to last week's questions on how many joins MySQL can handle. I don't see much in the way of official documentation, but dug around the forums and found good information in this thread.

Creating an index requires creating a key, and there's a limit placed on the number of keys allowed for a table. Thus the limit on indexes is governed by the number of keys you are allowed to create. The error message when you've created one too many keys looks like:

PHP is different. Unlike Java for example, there is no formal community, and no formal community process. PHP does not see itself as controlled by a company, or even large corporate players. PHP is not developed, it kind of grows. People using other languages see this as a weakness, but I actually think of it as a strength of the language, the platform and the community.

PHP is used differently than for example Java. Successful PHP projects use different strategies. If you have listened to what Rasmus has been telling you in his speeches during the last two years, you might get an idea of how PHP is different, and why. If you are comparing the approach MySQL has been using in the Dell DVD webshop benchmark uncontest with the other PHP approaches, you can see some of these principles applied.

Unfortunately, for many of these principles and methodologies no fancy names exist. So in my untalk on the PHP unconference at …

Back in April MySQL had its yearly user's conference. Each year there are more users and more people to talk to, which means I get fewer chances to listen to any of the talks being presented. I did though take time out to listen to the talk on Second Life. I've been playing with BBS'es, Talkers, and other assorted digital online communities ever since I got my first modem. What fascinated me about Second Life was the prospect of it taking a shot at being the first "metaverse". I am a big fan of "Snow Crash" and would love to see that sort of environment spring to life. I work daily with friends and colleagues using IM and IRC, and any depth that can be added to those conversations is great as far as I am concerned.

I have also been fascinated with learning about how they are scaling with MySQL. Their design is fairly classic with replication, but what is interesting is to look and see how this is applied to a virtual …

At the developers conference this year, held in Sorrento, Italy, I was fortunate enough to meet and have dinner with some Italian MySQL users?some of whom had travelled from Rome to be with us that evening at a lovely traditional Italian restaurant just off one of the main squares.

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I?ve recently written about techniques for archiving, purging, and re-indexing huge database tables. These techniques exploit both data structure and usage patterns. In this article I?ll develop that theme further, and explain how to write more efficient non-backtracking maintenance jobs when the update and insertion patterns permit.

part of my focus for the next couple of weeks will be on rolling out some improvements to the mysql bugs system. the first step in doing that was to upgrade from mysql 4.1 to the latest mysql 5.1 beta, which turned out to be entirely painless.

the next step is going to be some database normalization and code refactoring. but because there are some other people who have written ad-hoc tools against the existing schema, i?ll be hiding the schema changes behind some views.

the first big schema change will be moving the categories from a bunch of hard-coded strings in the source code (and a varchar(32) field) to a table organized using the nested set model. that?s something i?ve been …

The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), (http://www.lpi.org), the world's premier Linux certification organization, and MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database, today announced a joint initiative to offer MySQL 5.0 certification exams through LPI's global proctor network, beginning with the C3 Expo, June 27th ? 29th, 2006 at the Javits Center in New York City. Prosoft Learning Corporation, LPI's affiliate in North America will be offering these exams at C3 Expo along with LPI Certification exams.

are you a committer or a member of a large OSS project?

do you participate in any other large open source project?

I’m trying to get a understanding of how all the different major oss projects are being cross pollinated by having people participating in different projects.

feel free to comment, or mail me directly at ian at holsman.net

Thanks!

I've been working on a presentation the last couple of days with a few of my colleagues. The presentation is centered around looking at MySQL Cluster from various perspectives within the company to help determine some future initiatives. It was an excellent exercise in discovering all the things that are great about the product, but also in helping prioritize a few things we need to work on.

One of the great things about working at MySQL is that there is never a shortage of ideas or opinions on how to make things better (even if we manage to "build a bike shed" now and again...what software company doesn't?) . Fortunately, everyone that works on the Cluster product in whatever capacity here at MySQL, really wants the product to be a success. Their day to day efforts show it and its always great to be a part of that.

One of things we really sharpened during this process, was the definition of the product itself. I think …