Introduction I either have time for reading or writing, but not both. Now that the first edition of High-Performance Java Persistence is done, I can catch up on the many books I planned on reading but didn’t have time to do so. In this post, I’m going to review High Performance MySQL by Baron Schwartz, … Continue reading Book Review – High Performance MySQL (3rd edition) →

The second edition of High Performance MySQL has 27 reviews on Amazon, but the third edition only has 5 so far. By this point I assume many of you have a copy and have read it cover to cover. I’d really appreciate your reviews — when purchasing, people look not only at the star rating but at the number of reviews. You can create a review here. And thanks!

Further Reading:

• Are you sure you’re reading the second edition of High Performance MySQL?
• Update on High Performance MySQL, 2nd Edition …

The third edition is now available in ePub, Mobi, and PDF formats. Print format should be available early next week.

Further Reading:

• High Performance MySQL, Third Edition
• High Performance MySQL, Second Edition: Replication, Scaling and High Availability
• High Performance MySQL 2nd Edition gets revised and translated
• …

Want a free copy of High Performance MySQL, Third Edition? If you register before the early-bird pricing expires for the MySQL Conference in April, and use the discount code PL-Book, you’ll get to take a free copy home from the conference!

And now, a status update: I’m currently proofing the QC2 (quality control #2) revision of the book; after this, the book goes to manufacturing. The PDF is now 820 pages, which is a lot of work to proofread. You can imagine how much more in-depth we’ve been able to go with so many more pages.

The free sample online is …

You can pre-order the new edition of High Performance MySQL now on Amazon or via O’Reilly’s website.

Eric Bergen called the second edition “the best MySQL book on the planet“. What will the third edition be called? The best in the solar system? This reminds me of a joke, supposed to be a true story: three pizza restaurants next to each other had signs saying “best pizza in town,” “best pizza in the world,” and “best pizza on this block.”

Further Reading:

• …

The third edition is nearly done. I’ve committed first drafts of all chapters, and all but one appendix. I need to do the last appendix and then rewrite the preface, which is a few days of work at my current pace. After that, it’s the usual tech review, copyediting, updates to figures, etc — and then it’s off to production.

I’m really pleased with this edition. I was planning on it just being a refresh of the second edition to reflect what’s new in MySQL-land, but it’s almost a complete rewrite. There’s a lot more focus on a logical approach throughout: what happens in the server, what are the limitations, why this matters, what are the practical consequences and applications, and therefore…. The “and therefore” is the real reason you buy a book such as this one.

Further Reading:

• …

A few people have asked me how it’s going, so I thought I’d just share it with everyone. Things are going great. I’m writing much more quickly than I thought I would be, and as a result I’m finding I have time to do more changes than I thought I could, which makes me happy. I should be finished drafting the chapters by the end of the year.

In particular, the faster than expected pace is giving me a chance to address one of the big weaknesses of the second edition. In many places, the second edition is a collection of facts and experiences. It says what and why, but it doesn’t convey a process or method, and it doesn’t teach you how to think about things and apply the results to situations beyond what the book covers. I’m finding a number of key areas to remedy that: performance optimization, profiling, indexing, high availability, scalability, and so on. I’m adding an explanation of the principles and consequences, and …

I have just signed the contract for High Performance MySQL, Third Edition. The third edition will include major updates and new content in these areas:

• Recent performance and reliability advances, particularly in MySQL 5.5 and the InnoDB storage engine.
• A new chapter on using MySQL in cloud computing environments.
• Updates on modern hardware, including many CPUs, large memory, and solid-state storage.
• Improvements in clustering and high availability, including middleware and third-party solutions.
• Improvements in replication.
• New material on profiling MySQL, benchmarking, and tools and techniques to help you measure, monitor, and manage your MySQL installations.

The book will be available for purchase early next year. It’s been a great three years since the second edition was published, and …

O’Reilly tells me that translation rights for our book, High Performance MySQL Second Edition have been purchased in the following languages:

Korean Russian Portuguese Polish Spanish Czech

Some of them were sold quite a while ago, and some are more recent. Portuguese was the first. I’m looking forward to learning all these languages (except for Spanish, which I already sort [...]

I just thought I’d drop a line about our book. Sales appear to be doing well still: the book is still at Amazon sales rank 3,213 and seems to hold pretty steady there. A lot of people have discovered it and are recommending it — including members of MySQL’s professional services team. [...]