Projects : MySQL Book

Last modified: 2004.05.22

I wrote some chapters for a book. MySQL Transactions and Replication Handbook will be available on March 25, 2003 from Wrox Press Ltd. (Or perhaps not. There are updates...)

I don't know much about the transactions part of this book, since I wasn't involved with that side of it. The chapters I wrote are on replication:

If you find something wrong in those three chapters, you can blame me. That's why there's an errata page... :)

Why You Should Buy This Book

There hasn't been much in the way of documentation for MySQL before this book, as far as I've found. A general book on MySQL might include a page or two mentioning that the replication feature exists. An expert level book might have eight or ten pages. The official MySQL documentation has some useful information, but it's not as detailed.

If you're looking to implement MySQL replication, you probably ought to go to your local bookseller and at least thumb through this book.

(That's about as much salesmanship as you can expect from me.)

Writing is Hard Work

It's been an interesting experience. I've done a fair amount of technical writing in the past, but I haven't had the thrill of the "turn in 30 pages by this deadline" experience since college. Though it took a while to blow out the cobwebs, it's gone well. I certainly feel qualified to answer questions regarding MySQL replication after the amount of research and experimenting I've done.

I got lots of good comments from the technical editors on the first drafts, and I think the chapters are much stronger as a result.

Updates

2003-02-12: Phew. Finally done with the edits. All that's left is to send in a picture...

2003-02-26: Cool. Wrox's page for the book has my name on it.

2003-03-13: Edited this page to switch from future to present tense, since it's now March 2003.

2003-03-26: Not cool. Wrox is apparently going out of business. It looks like the book won't be published. The authors of the book are discussing our options, and I guess it's possible that the book will come out in some form one day, but it looks fairly bleak right now. This is very disappointing.

2003-05-22: Definitely cool! I've heard from APress that they're interested in publishing this title. It might actually make it to the shelf at your local bookstore. Exciting!

2004-05-22: It's been a year, and there's no book. Not cool. Oh well...