Vos Virtual Network

Archive for October, 2008

Autumn on Flickr – Follow GR58’s photostream.

Book Review: MySQL in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition, by Russell J.T. Dyer, published by O’Reilly Media, April 2008, 545 pages, ISBN:0-596-51433-6, price: US $34.99 (Reviewed by Daniel Vos)

MySQL in a Nutshell, 2nd ed.

Behind virtually every web application, there’s a database management system.

Ever used Facebook? Guess what? It runs on a (huge!) database. What about your favorite discussion forum? Are you into auto maintenance, fly fishing, or (if you’re like my wife) do you like to swap recipes, trade amusing anecdotes about your kids, or post blog articles? All database-driven.

Many of the most popular, thriving websites are database driven. Behind the scenes many Web 2.0 websites are running MySQL, Sun Microsystem’s open source database. (There are other popular databases from Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM — but that’s another story.)

MySQL is the M in LAMP — the very popular Open Source web site platform/framework (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python). MySQL is the database used with WordPress (the software that runs this VVN blog). MySQL is the default database server used with Ruby on Rails.

If MySQL is the world’s most popular open-source database, then MySQL in a Nutshell (2nd ed.) by Russell J. T. Dyer is the Encyclopedia Britannica of MySQL. Weighing in at 545 pages, the book is divided into five parts:

1. Tutorial – A brief tutorial on installing MySQL and performing basic database management tasks (35 pages).
2. Statement and Function Reference – A comprehensive reference to SQL statements, clauses, and functions implemented by MySQL. (SQL is the standard language implemented by all major database management systems, but MySQL, Oracle, MS SQLServer, and the rest all have their own quirks.) This section weighs in at nearly 300 pages, and covers database user administration, data manipulation, and database replication, and more. String function, date and time functions, mathematical functions, and flow control functions are described here, too.
3. Client and Server Administration – A guide to MySQL server and client configuration and administration (90 pages). This is where you will learn the difference between mysqld (the database server) and mysql (the command-line client), and the configuration options of each. A reference to command-line utilities such as mysqladmin, mysqlcheck and mysqldump is also included.
4. Programming APIs – A 100-page guide to three popular programming language APIs – C, Perl, and PHP – which websites or programs use to interface with MySQL.
5. Quick Reference – A 15-page set of appendices with a quick reference to the data types, operators (arithmetic, relational, and logical), and environment variables used by MySQL.

If you are an absolute beginner to MySQL and database management systems, this book might not be the best first choice for you. A good place to start instead might be here. But if you know that MySQL is in your software development or web site development future, MySQL in a Nutshell deserves a place on your bookshelf.

Today marks the one year anniversary of the day we started the Designing With Web Standards group on Facebook (DWWS). Since October 27, 2007 over 4,100 members have joined, representing over 50 countries around the globe.

Update: As of  Jan. 26, 2009 – there are over 4,800 members.

Designing With Web Standards - Facebook Group

Quoting from the DWWS Facebook group page:

Designing With Web Standards is “the foundational web standards text”. “A core text cited by many as the beginning of the true revolution.”

“Web standards” didn’t really exist until Mr. Jeffrey Zeldman, and his colleagues, coined the term, applied it to a set of ill-enforced W3C and ECMA recommendations, and persuaded browser makers to support these core technologies accurately and completely. That was “The Web Standards Project.”

Designers still weren’t using these hard-won standards, so Mr. Zeldman pushed A List Apart in the direction of web standards evangelism, and this had a great effect. An underground of smart, forward-thinking designers and developers embraced web standards.

Still, most people didn’t get the concepts of web standards, and the industry was oblivious to the benefits or even the existence of web standards.

So the book was written, and published, revised and re-published and the story of web standards continues. It’s the book that launched a thousand other books, from Web Standards Solutions on. It changed some people’s careers, launched others, shook up the industry. However imperfectly applied, web standards are behind most “Web 2.0″ apps.

And yet web standards are still a semi-underground movement, and standardistas are still a rare breed.

Back on November 2nd, 2007 – Jeffrey Zeldman wrote about the group in his blog.

In July of 2008, we wrote an update about DWWS group activities, and related events.

In the past year, 4,171 members have to joined the DWWS Facebook group – to ask questions about the Designing With Web Standards book, and dialogue about Web Standards.

The DWWS Facebook group is already very global. Members are from the following countries, or regions: Australia, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belize, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Finland, Fiji, France, Ghana, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya,
Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, UK, USA, Venezuela, Vietnam, etc.

Join the DWWS FB group and let’s learn about web standards together.

Just getting started with web design or web standards? Check out Jeffrey Zeldman’s DWWS page, or our recent book review of Jeffrey’s book – Designing With Web Standards.

Did you watch the debate between Carl Levin and Jack Hoogendyk for the US Senate?

I love the way Jack Hoogendyk answers questions. Jack’s ideas are great,  his ethical standards are high. I think Jack will be a great replacement for Carl Levin.

Here’s a link to the debate that was held recently at the Detroit Economic Club –  you can watch a replay of the streaming video. It will also be broadcast again in the Detroit area on Channel 56 this Sunday, October 26, at 4 pm.

You can watch another debate (between Carl Levin and Jack Hoogendyk) that was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan (on Sunday, October 19, 2008) on the WGVU web video channel – Decision 2008 US Senatorial Debate.