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.