Windowing Functions are new to MySQL with Version 8.  I have been very lucky in the past few days to find two excellent resources that I want to share with you.  Both are worth the time and effort to study.

At the Southern California Linux Expo last week, Bruce Momjian of EnterpriseDB and PostgreSQL fame gave an amazing tutorial on Common Table Expressions and Windowing Functions (slides for both at https://momjian.us/main/presentations/sql.html).  Bruce is an amazing presenter and I highly recommend going to his sessions at conferences. So, what can a MySQL-er learn from a Postrgrestian?

Plenty.

In this case the two databases are using SQL and the features that turn that language from descriptive to imperative. But showing how these features is very hard.  Bruce said it took him six years to finish …

There are two new MySQL books both from Apress Press. One is an in depth master course on the subject and the other is a quick introduction.


ProMySQL NDB Cluster is subtitled Master the MySQL Cluster Lifecycle and at nearly 700 pages it is vital resource to anyone that runs or is thinking about running NDB Cluster. The authors, Jesper Wisborg Krogh and Mikiya Okuno, have distilled their vast knowledge of this difficult subject in a detail packed but easily readable book.  MySQL Cluster is much more complex in many areas than a regular MySQL server and here you will find all those details. If you run MySQL NDB Cluster then you need this book. The partitioning information in chapter 2 is worth the price of the book alone.  I am only a third of the way …

As Hubert writes, PostgreSQL 8.4 has windowing functions.

Well done. I’ve been watching progress on this for a while. It greatly enhances the expressiveness of SQL.

What about common table expressions (WITH and WITH RECURSIVE)? Yes, PostgreSQL 8.4 will have common table expressions (WITH and WITH RECURSIVE) as well. That’s the “other” quantum [...]