Excellent resource for the beginniner and seasoned administrator alike

Having written LAMP-based web applications, I read High Performance MySQL hoping to gain a deeper understanding of how MySQL operates at a relatively low level and how to deal with ongoing frustrations (especially replication).

I was quite pleased. As others have noted, the book is readable and the authors' tone inviting. While the book does rigorously avoid discussion of low-level implementation details (e.g. "the query is parsed" is left as a black box step in the execution process), this does not detract materially from the message. The chapter on replication is one of the best treatments of this topic I have seen.

I only have a few criticisms. First, there are a number of typographical errors of varying severity, though I understand that the most egregious ones (e.g. in code) have been fixed in newer printings. Second, while the book is titled, "High Performance MySQL," it might be more aptly called, "High Volume MySQL." The contents seem highly directed toward sites that run simple queries against huge tables, neglecting somewhat the many sites (e.g. ecommerce) that may run very complex queries against small to medium size tables, but for which optimization may be just as important. This focus is unsurprising given the lead author's career at Yahoo!, but prospective readers should at least be aware of the bias.

Other Reviews

• MySQL on Steroids
• It could have been better
• Excellent resource for the beginniner and seasoned administrator alike
• Good intro to managing databases but short on details
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