MySQL 5.1? It works for me.
Writing by corra on Wednesday, 3 of December , 2008 at 4:36 pm
On what was said by Monty.
I think that in any dispute there are never two separate positions; there’s no a “black position”, there’s no a “white position”. I think about a “gray gradient” where there exists several different positions and opinions. Maybe the truth in this case is “gray” colored!
As a good Italian I stay in the middle thinking that there are some truths in the criticism of Monty, but at the same time I think there’s also exaggeration.
But mine is not a relevant opinion! I don’t have a deep knowledge of MySQL AB organization and I don’t know all the facts and the people involved. My contribution to the discussion is very simple and humble, just to say that I’m using 5.1 version since August 2008 in a more than 2 million queries per day production environment and I never experienced a server crash (ok, sometimes it crashed … but that was my own fault!).
For the goals of my applications I found partitioning useful and powerful. In my experience MySQL 5.1 works!
Well, it is certainly true that there are bugs, but there has never been a software product without them, even when declared stable.
In an optimistic way, I feel Monty wanted to encourage MySQL AB and all the developers to do their best in the future to develop a better product. If there were errors somewhere in the development of 5.1 I think it’s time to correct them. Errors are a significant part of human nature, we couldn’t do anything without them. There is no progress without errors.
I’m one of the winners of the MySQL 5.1 Use Case Competition and as an award I won a dinner with Monty. I would dine with him ardently (note for the cook: I like fish 
) and I hope this could be still possible.
Comments (2)
Category: MySQLen
Comment by Ryan Thiessen
Made Wednesday, 3 of December , 2008 at 6:33 pm
I think your opinion is quite relevant, and represents part of a general consensus of end users who have used the product in the field and found 5.1 to be a stable and useful product.
Comment by Sheeri K. Cabral
Made Friday, 5 of December , 2008 at 5:53 am
You didn’t link it, but I assume you’re referring to what Monty said here. I actually think Monty’s position is less controversial than most of us realize….
Bullet point 1: a) new features aren’t very robust. This isn’t new with this release MySQL. In 3.23.26, replication didn’t work very well. The first GA release of 5.0 was three years ago, and views and triggers still aren’t very robust.
b) test before you put into production. You mean there are people that don’t do this?
c) The more people use it, the more bugs will be found and the more bugs will be fixed, so maybe you should wait a few more minor revisions. This, much like the previous bullet point of “testing”, is pretty standard, for any software (or even a Linux OS) upgrade!
Bullet point 2: “Don’t expect that all critical bugs that you may have encountered in 5.0 to be fixed in 5.1″ There are critical bugs in software. It is a fact of life. Databases are complicated, and there are many critical bugs that haven’t even been discovered yet! Again, nothing new with software in general, or MySQL in specific.
Bullet point 3: Reiterates points a) and c) from bullet point 1.
Bullet point 4: If you’re new, use 5.1. That’s probably the strongest argument for using the software anyone can come up with. What he’s really saying is, “If you want the best version of the software, 5.1 is it.”
I really fail to see what the big “controversy” is here. Monty’s tone was very negative; other than that……the biggest surprise is that you have a software vendor being honest about the fact that their product’s new version isn’t perfect.
