Last weekend I attended the OpenSQL Camp in Charlottesville, VA. There was a great turnout, and Baron did an excellent job organizing it! I saw a few folks I met at OSCON over the summer, along with meeting many new people. What a great group - intelligent, fun, and know how to get things done. I had some great conversations, especially with Brian, Stewart, Arjen, Patrick, Mark, and Jay. The food was great too, I was a bit worried about …

So, I installed one of those math question anti-spam plugins for WordPress comments. It stopped the spam! Unfortunately it also stopped all valid comments when the answer was right, although it did work when I first set it up. So if you tried leaving a comment (I see a few were denied) for one of the recent Drizzle or MySQL related posts (like the New libdrizzle), please try again. :)

Anyone have a suggestion for a good anti-spam plugin for WordPress comments? I’ve looked a bit but nothing really stands out.

What’s the new libdrizzle? It’s a complete rewrite of the client library for the Drizzle project, but it also has full support for the current MySQL protocol (4.1+). Right now Drizzle uses the same protocol as MySQL, but work is being done to design a new, more robust protocol. Even when the Drizzle protocol changes, I plan to keep full support for the MySQL protocol since there is a need for a good low-level non-blocking client library. Also, once libdrizzle turns into a full protocol library (server and client packets) it could make for some interesting Drizzle/MySQL hybrid proxies.

Over the weekend I made a lot of progress on the new library, and last night I just finished up the first pass at the core functionality. It can now do full query and result processing. Currently only non-cached results are being used (no store_result() function), but the cached interfaces will be …

After an amazing summer of getting married, graduating college, adopting a new dog, and taking a much needed extended vacation, I’m now back on track with where I left off. I’ve been making good progress on the asynchronous MySQL library I talked about in this post in the form of a new drizzle client library. This library is also compatible with MySQL since they share the same protocol, and if drizzle changes in the future I plan on supporting current and new MySQL protocols as well. All of the connection and I/O overhead is mostly done, and I’m just working through the protocol bits now. I’m hoping to have something ready to show and talk about for the OpenSQL camp.

In other news, I’ve recently started working with the …

Last week I was at OSCON (more on that later) and I was surrounded by a mix of laptops - most of them running Ubuntu or OS X. This caused an internal dilemma I’ve been having for years to resurface: is using a Mac “selling out” from your OSS ideals? I still use a PowerBook and last fall I purchased an iMac (guilt included). Previously I had been running Slackware Linux on a wide range of desktops and laptops (this was since 1995). I switched because I was tired of dealing with all those little pesky hardware compatibility issues, especially on laptops, and I thought the time saved there would be a good tradeoff for new development. Well, I don’t think I can use that excuse anymore. Ubuntu is pretty slick and takes many of those issues away. A few laptop manufacturers are even shipping with Linux now. There is even an argument using OS X for development is more difficult now (try compiling large applications like MySQL or Drizzle). How do you …

Concentric, the company I work for, is looking for a MySQL DBA! The position is in San Jose, CA, and here is a link to the official job posting. To apply, please email your resume and a cover letter to SELECT REVERSE(’moc.ox.ws@semuser’);. Include “MySQL DBA” in your subject line. Here is the description:

Concentric, an XO Communications Service, is looking to grow its Engineering team with a MySQL Database Administrator. The successful candidate will have great technical depth and breadth to span our applications, server and web service. We want to talk to people who can think out-of-the-box to help us find unique solutions in a fast moving environment.

Responsibilities

• Design and support the MySQL 5 databases for customer-facing and back-end systems used in a high volume internet services company using high …

I’m getting geared up for OSCON next week. It looks like there will be quite a few regular sessions, along with a number of Birds of a Feather sessions, focused on MySQL.

For those making it out, I thought I would mention a couple fun things to do around Portland. I’ve been living here about three years now, so I haven’t seen it all, but these are some must-sees.

• Powells Technical Books - I know they are a conference sponsor and will have a booth, but try to make it over to the real store (it’s just a short walk across the bridge from the convention center). Not only is it …

The UPS decided to visit today and left this on the front doorstep:

Woot! If it’s even half as good as the tips and tricks described in the authors’ blogs we should all be in for a treat.

…and while I’m posting pictures, I can’t resist sharing this photo we took while visiting my family in Maine last week:

Yes, that’s a full size riding lawn mower strapped to the top of a small Ford Escort hatchback.

With the bulk of my classes over, I finally have time to read some hand-picked books (rather than those 1000 page dry volumes required for courses). This is perfect timing since the new “High Performance MySQL” book was just released. I got a little carried away with my order, but felt I should catch up on some books I’ve been eyeing for some time. Anyone else care to share their summer reading list?

By June 30th, I should have:

• High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, Replication, and More
• The Art of Multiprocessor Programming
• The Definitive ANTLR Reference: Building Domain-Specific Languages
• Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World
• The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks’ Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets

(The last book is for both Wendy and me, it should help provide tasty treats while reading the others)

I …