Today, I would like to present this new book from Rick Silva: MySQL Crash Course – A Hands-on Introduction to Database Development, No Starch Press, 2023.

I participated in this project as technical reviewer and I really enjoyed reading the chapters Rick was writing as soon as they were ready… and thank you Rick for the kind words to me in the book 😉

About the book, if you are ready to dive into the world of database management but you don’t know where to start, this book is the perfect guide for beginners eager to learn MySQL quickly and efficiently.

MySQL Crash Course is a concise and practical guide to learn how to use the most popular Open Source Database.

The book is filled with examples, tips, expert advice and exercises.

Reading the book, you will …

The fourth edition of the MySQL Cookbook, solutions for database developers and administrators is a huge book, 938 pages !

And the least we can say is that you get what you pay for !

This book is an excellent resource for anyone working with MySQL, whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned developer. The book provides a comprehensive collection of recipes that address various aspects of database management using MySQL.

Sveta and Alkin made an excellent job regrouping tips collected during many years of operating MySQL and helping users through support.

The book provides a list of solutions to the problems that every DBA faces regularly.

As MySQL is improving fast with the MySQL 8.0 …

Today I would share a nice book related to MySQL 8.0 for our Chinese users.

The original title of this book by Scott Yao, is MySQL 8.0 运维与优化

I had the chance to read parts of the book before it was published to have my comment on the back cover.

This book is very detailed with many examples on how to administer a MySQL server.
It covers the new features of MySQL 8.0 and Scott illustrates perfectly how to take advantage of them.

Reading the book, it is obvious that the author is an experienced MySQL DBA and is sharing his experience that many junior DBAs can certainly benefit from.

This is a very technical book, as I like, I really recommend it to all Chinese people and I hope to see it translated into English too.

And finally I would thanks Scott for having sent to me a hard signed copy of the …

I recently had the chance to read in preview Bill Karwin‘s new book: SQL Antipatterns, Volume 1: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Database Programming.

This book is a rework of Bill’s best seller from 2010. The new book can be considered as the second edition and is updated with Bill’s latest observations about common mistakes.

The author took in consideration the feedback about the first edition.

This new edition is full of information for beginners but also for experts who will appreciate to see how antipatterns are solved and most of the time surely propose different approaches.

Each antipatterns are identified by their names like “jaywalking“, …

Today, the book I would like to recommend is Efficient MySQL Performance – Best Practices and Techniques, Daniel Nichter, O’Reilly, 2021.

I participated (just a bit) in the writing of this book as technical reviewer with Vadim and Fipar. I really enjoyed that role of carefully reading the early drafts of the chapters Daniel was writing.

Although Daniel says the book is not for the experts, I think even experts will enjoy it because several key InnoDB concepts are also covered. You can see that I refer to the book often in my A graph a day, keeps the doctor away ! series on monitoring and trending.

If you’re looking for information on transaction isolation and undo logs, fuzzy checkpointing, etc… you’ll find …

I’ve been publishing more articles outside of the OpenLampTech newsletter, directly to the Substack page. In this post, I’m sharing a recent post featuring one of my favorite SQL books…

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Last time I mentioned four great MySQL books for 2018.  I was tactfully reminded of two books I overlooked. First is Dr. Charles Bell's Introducing InnoDB Cluster which I have not read (but it is on order).

And last, but not least, is Mikael Ronstrum's MySQL Cluster 7.5 Inside and Out.  This is another book on NDB cluster and is a 'msut have' for those running NDB clusters.

My former boss, Marten Mickos, has created an excellent new resources for early stage founders, managers and execs called www.Schoolofherring.com. Each post has a short write up and often a 2-3 minute video covering a topic such as giving feedback, Peter Drucker's principles of good management, what it takes to build an effective team, hiring for strength etc. Some of these topics are very practical, like how to send good email, others are more thought-provoking, such as the notion that …

There is a good article over at Re-Code by ex-Microsoft VP Steven Sinofsky called "The Four Stages of Disruption".  It describes the evolution of products and markets through disruption, drawing from Sinofsky's own insights and also building on the work of Everett Rogers ("The Diffusion of Innovations") and Clayton Christensen ("The …

As a leader of a technical operations team I often have to work on technical operations engineer hiring. This process involves a lot of interviews with candidates and during those interviews along with many challenging practical questions I really love to ask questions like “What are the most important resources you think an Operations Engineer should follow?”, “What books in your opinion are must-read for a techops engineer?” or “Who are your personal heroes in IT community?”. Those questions often give me a lot of information about candidates, their experience, who they are looking up to in the community, what they are interested in, and if they are actively working on improving their professional level.

Recently, one of the candidates asked me to share my lists with him and I thought this information could be valuable to other people so I have decided to share it here on my blog.

Must-Read Books List

First …