10 Things I like about MySQL

I have worked quite a few databases but most frequently land up using MySQL.

I have been working a lot on Sql Server 2005 recently at work.

Some things I love about MySQL are as follows.

High Speed of Operation

If you are talking about high speed database access and operation, there’s no better choice. MySQL became popular mainly due to this. Oracle and SQL server may be enterprise ready and more robust when compared to the database from the land of Dolphins.But I just love the speed of MySQL.

Command line interface

Simple yet powerful command line gives access entire feature set. In times of Server crashes or high traffic, using the command line via SSH is such a great possibility

Cool tools

phpMyAdmin and this database go along so well. MySQL query browser and Administrator are decent tools. Sqlyog is also good enough. There’s a commercial product called Navicat which is quite fabulous.

Keeps Sql really simple

In the land of MySQL, you need not be a SQL guru or know the ANSI SQL 92 standard . You just need to have something people call ” Common Sense ” . Its fairly easy to translate real world requirements into mysql queries. If you have worked in SQL server , I am sure you would know how much of crap sql you need to know for simple operations. MySQL might not be the Enterprise Database but it certainly follows the KISS (Keep it Simple and Stupid) approach.

Really fast to setup

I remember using this the backend for my final year project. Its just so easy to get this one running.Be it the official installer,zip or 3rd party tools like Xampp

Nice variety of storage engines

MyISAM, InnoDB ,Heap ,Merge are some of the storage engines you can use for your database.

Cross Platform

Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris or even on VMware.

Light Hardware Requirements

MySQL is known to eat some amount of RAM, but its works fairly well even on the most simple configurations like a AMD 1.6GHz 256MB RAM Machine. Short learning curve Pretty easy to learn

Huge User Base

This is one of the best points about MySQL. Since its free , so many people use it and so you can easily find free help.

Bayesian networks

I came accross this term somewhere on the web , might be someone’s status message or something. Just felt like finding out what it was all about.

Its something to do with probability and graph theory.Programmed into computers, these Bayesian systems can automatically generate optimal predictions or decisions even when key pieces of information are missing.
Microsoft is said to be using Bayesian systems in its system design.Google is also using a Bayesian Spam filter.

Further reading

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~murphyk/Bayes/la.times.html

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~murphyk/Bayes/bnintro.html

http://directory.google.com/Top/Science/Math/Statistics/Bayesian_Analysis/

SEO in 2007

How are Search engines going to work in 2007 ?

Things might not change much , but just get the basics right.

  • Quality of links matters ,not quantity – this has been there since the beginning but from now on more importance will be given to quality of links
  • Avoid 302 Redirects completely – Matt Cutts had pointed out that this can get your site / page of the listings if you use 302s
  • Be careful about link exchanges
  • Refrain from link spam
  • Get links from relevant sites
  • Focus more on semantic content,usability – let the javascript menus die. AJAX enabled websites might suffer on this front as they are heavy on javascript.
  • Session IDs are a strict no, get rid of them (Why use sessions on public pages ? )

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Mobility at its Max

I was off for a short trip near hyderabad during the weekend.Had to travel some 300kms from Hyd to Mantralaya. The only connectivity I had was my Nokia 6630 with Airtel Mobile office. I was able to check mails using the Gmail Mobile App and could also read my favorite blogs using an rss reader.

Opera Mini is also a must-have killer app. The speeds were dead slow but atleast transfers were happening.

Hope the networks are faster !!