(Jan. 16, 2008) - Sun Acquires MySQL AB.
Huh. This is interesting. MySQL was the first relational database I was ever introduced to, back when I was going to school in 1999. Wow. That was a long time ago, but not really because I was using LINUX and playing Starcraft and when I wrote my programs I used GCC and not punch cards. Heh, I just realized I don't even know what a punch card looks like.
My first job out of school was working on the EZ-NETTools product line. The company I worked for was called ICServ. I haven't kept in touch with any of my old co-workers. I'd be interested to hear how they are doing. Everything we did back then was in Perl/JavaScript/MySQL. I didn't touch the css or dhtml stuff. It was too finicky for me and I didn't like having to worry about the cross-browser issues. I was pretty good with my table-based layouts. I worked on the payment gateway system, on the admin tools, on the catalog and shopping cart, and on the billing system. We used MySQL for our database, version 3.22. I remember upgrading to 3.23. Shane Corgatelli was the lead developer / database administrator. I thought I was so smart and knew everything. Man, was I dumb! I remember looking at the feature list for MySQL 4.0. I didn't even know what a stored procedure or sub-select was at that time. Back then was when I first learned what a left outer join was. That's one thing about working with MySQL, you definitely learned how to become a master of joining tables.
After I left ICServ I went to work for a company called DocuTech They were a Microsoft Certified Partner, so at that time I made the switch to SQL Server 2000 and never looked back. Well, that's not completely true. Last year I was setting up Bugzilla at for a previous employer, Pop Art. There was a couple times when a project manager would login and create/manage bugs under a second account and then wonder why the bugs weren't appearing under the first account. That's when I'd have to login, run some queries, and then update the fields manually using only the console.
That's one thing that hasn't changed much with MySQL, is the lack of good tools bundled with the server. Of course, I haven't looked at it for quite a while, so I'd be happy for someone to correct on that last statement. Even with the free version of Microsoft SQL Server (express edition) you can get Management Studio Express for free. Competition among vendors is great for us developers, and especially for the customers. Here's to hoping that Sun can come up with some amazing and free tools for MySQL. Heck, for a billion (with a 'B') dollars you'd think they'd be able to.