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03 October 2009

A year in review; new direction.

It has been more than a year since my self-imposed hiatus from serious MySQL development started and I think it is about time that I get back into the saddle. I have a handful of working prototypes but I should get the code out there, back into the community.

I learned a bunch of stuff during the past year at Google but in the end, working on JavaScript, HTML/CSS and Google proprietary languages didn't really suit me during my role as SRE. (Also the 2-3 hours spent every day commuting to and from the office took it's toll)

My immediate plan is to look for another job which would allow me to finish off the patches I have been toying with:

  • constifying the server code so that GCC can make smarter decisions and generate more optimal object code.
  • Splitting the parser. Removing the stored procedure implementation from the main parser yet preserving functionality and allowing alternate implementations to be installed. Use some modern bison features.
  • Remove the direct use of Protocol class from most of the server core.
  • External Language Stored Procedure rewrite. It will be simpler than current fork and to take advantage of all the previous items.
  • Various bug fixes.


I also want to get more engaged again with the MySQL community and hopefully will have new and exciting stuff to present at the UC next year.

5 comments:

erkules said...

Wish you best! I would definitely see more of you Stored Procedure work!

Unknown said...

Hi Antony!

Sounds like some of the things we're doing in Drizzle. Rackspace is hiring Drizzle developers if you want to focus your development there... :)

Either way, best of luck with the job search!

hingo said...

Hi Antony

If you ask me, Google should pay you to work full time on MySQL, they do it for Linux, Python, etc after all!

In any case, did you already send your application to jobs@askmonty.org? Unfortunately for you there are quite many good developers in line, but do it just in case.

I you find another employer, even better. It is about time the MySQL development community stops being employed by one and the same community.

And when you do get to work on this stuff, I hope you know what the friendly and community inclusive mysql code branch is called nowadays *wink*.

Henrik
Monty Program
MariaDB

Antony said...

Hi Henrik,

It makes sense for Google to pay people to work on the Linux kernel, on Python etc... because they use those pieces of FOSS.

It doesn't make any business sense for Google to be paying people to work on MySQL because it is being phased out and being all replaced. Google does not need SQL. MySQL does not play well within Google's infrastructure: The only MySQL roles in Google would be strictly short-term maintenance until they have finally completed the migration.

Unknown said...

Hi Antony,

I always enjoy reading your posts and your attitude reminds me an article that I wrote about finding the job that you've always dreamed of.

Best of luck for your future, I'm sure you'll find a good place.

Luca