Beginning MySQL Database Design and Optimization: From Novice to Professional (Paperback)

by Chad Russell (Author), Jon Stephens (Author)
Key Phrases: optimizing queries, José González, normalization table, Open Source, Multiple Statements, First Normal Form (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Apress has done what many other publishers have failed to do by providing an excellent series of "Novice to Professional" books. This book is pretty much a "must have" for a MySQL programmer looking to bridge the gap between novice and professional. <i>Beginning MySQL Database Design and Optimization</i> is a great book for MySQL users who already know the basics and want to improve their use of MySQL.</a></p> </blockquote> <p id="quoteAuthor">&#8212; Mike Hillyer, Mike Hillyer's Personal Web Space </p></div>

<p>Nearly every non-trivial application requires data persistence, and for an application of any significant size and scope, persistence is typically achieved using a database. If you're building or maintaining any significant application and are using MySQL, this book is for you. For open source and other types of projects, the MySQL database is a very popular choice: it's free; fast, robust, and scalable; and it runs on all of the major platforms, allowing maximum use of available hardware resources. But it's easy to disregard MySQL's speed and other advantages if your database design is inefficient. Needlessly duplicating data, using improper types for columns, overloading a single table where multiple tables should be used, failing to leverage the calculation features of MySQL, and making multiple queries instead of an efficient single query are some of the common mistakes.</p>

<p><i>Beginning MySQL Database Design and Optimization</i> shows you how to identify, overcome, and avoid gross inefficiencies. It demonstrates how to maximize the many data manipulation features that MySQL includes. This book explains how to include tests and branches in your queries, how to normalize your database, and how to issue concurrent queries to boost performance, among many other design and optimization topics. You'll also learn about some features new to MySQL 4.1 and 5.0 like subqueries, stored procedures, and views, all of which will help you build even more efficient applications.</p>

About the Author
Chad Russell is a programmer and network administrator who owns his own Internet hosting company. He previously has written on MySQL, PHP, and other topics.

Jon Stephens is a programmer and database analyst based out of Australia.Stephens recently joined MySQL AB as a member of the Documentation Team.

Product Details

• Paperback: 520 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (October 18, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590593324
• ISBN-13: 978-1590593325
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #449,632 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More basics than design and optimization, November 6, 2004

By	Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I was hoping that there would be more about designing databases. Though I was pleasantly surprised at the solid introduction to MySQL that the book gives. In fact it spends the first two thirds of the book on the basics, before getting into optimization and finally programming.

The design aspect of the book is in the third chapter, which is one of the books best. There is some good high level material on the fundamentals of schema design, and then material on relation mapping, and then into it's implementation in MySQL.

There is a lot to like in this book. And I like the fact that someone is finally giving some attention to MySQL, which, if it's not the most advanced database in the world, is probably the most ubiquitous. This is a fine book for anyone who works with MySQL.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars improve your MySQL usage, November 14, 2004

By	W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

If you already know the basics of MySQL, then this book can be a nifty boost to your productivity. The authors plow straight into giving good tips for better table design. For example, the first chapter covers MySQL basics. But it furnishes very understandable advice. Like never using spaces in identifier names. While MySQL permits this, it greatly increases chances of logic errors.

Later in the book are far more complicated tips. Crucially, on how to optimise complex queries. While SQL notation is standard across vendors, each database has different ways to best phrase queries. So since you have committed to using MySQL, it helps to know what are best here.

The authors also instruct in how to hook up to external languages like PHP, Perl and Python. (What is it about all these languages that start with P?) Each has its adherents and is quite popular. So they try to give coverage of the combinations with MySQL.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 5 stars for novice to intermediate 4 for professionals, February 4, 2005

By	Harold McFarland (Florida) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The first three chapters of this book deal with the basics of MySQL including basic concepts, column and table types, keys, indexes, and normalization. The authors have written an excellent introduction to MySQL that provides all the core information you need to start using it right away. The chapter on finding the bottlenecks is one of the best sections in the book and details some of the finer points to be considered when creating your database. On the other hand, the part on optimizing queries is excellent for the beginning MySQL student (which is the target audience for this book) but not as good as it could be for the more experienced MySQL user. Perhaps I am just more sensitive to this area because of all the badly done queries I have had to deal with before. A good understanding of just this part can make a tremendous difference in optimization. If you are new to SQL queries the authors have done a great job of explaining why this is important and how to understand it when a query takes under a minute to run and then after a small change takes twenty. The last section covers accessing the MySQL database via other programming languages such as PHP. Beginning MySQL Database Design and Optimization is a recommended read for its target audience - the beginning MySQL programmer.