pro mysql
The wonderful folks over at Apress sent me an advanced copy of Pro MySQL. This book hurt my head. Seriously. Whenever I put the book down, I felt a little like this. For example, let's take one of the early chapters on Indexes. I thought, "Oh sweet, I always wanted to know how indexes worked!" But then the notations and logarithmic algorithms and logic charts came in and those thoughts soon turned into, "Oh God make it stop! It hurts!"
That's when I realized this book wasn't for your casual MySQL programmer or administrator.
Pro MySQL is said to be geared toward Intermediate and Advanced MySQL users, which summarizes the skill level perfectly. I was able to follow on the Intermediate parts very easiely. They were mostly chapters covering new features of MySQL 5: Stored Procedures, Functions, Views, Triggers, Cursors, and the new MySQL meta-data tables. If you ever need a sales pitch on why to switch to MySQL 5, just read those chapters. The new features take the already great MySQL package and turn it into something absolutely amazing! (It's really unfortunate that Fedora just started shipping MySQL 4 by default in Core 4 -- I wonder how long it'll take them to get to 5?)
As far as the Advanced topics go -- those were the ones that hurt my head. I have never needed to know MySQL at that level and, unfortunately, I doubt I ever will. They get into some really deep details with things like indexes (as mentioned in the beginning) and examining header files. If you've got the word MySQL or Database in your job title, you'll be able to groove on these topics.
If you're new to MySQL, I would definitely not pick this book up. If you're just using MySQL to run your blog or maybe your webmail app needed it for a backend, this book will be of no use to you, either. However, if you're using MySQL to store, you know, production stuff and data that ultimately brings in the paycheck, then you might want to read this book. It gives great coverage on MySQL 5 as well as jumping into it's inner workings.
I give it a 9/10.
