MyTop is a top tool for MySQL. It’s a text application for Linux systems that shows you what’s happening on your DB server.

Here’s a great set of articles showing off the new features in Php 5.3: Part 1, 2, 3, 4. It’s fun to watch languages evolve.

InstantRails is an all-in-one distribution of Rails, Apache, and Mysql for Windows users. It comes with a funky little console, and some demo rails applications to play with. A very quick way to hack at Rails bits when in Windows land.

Some slides on Flickr’s architecture. It’s all sensible stuff, with very little magic: Php4, Mysql (innodb), ImageMagick, Perl, Java (for nodes), RHEL, and so on.

Some tips on MySQL settings for largeness, avoid pain and suffering by understanding how it works.

Google groups has a MySQLi group.

Let’s face it, the default Php MySQL interfaces are pretty weak. A few of the shortcomings:

• No prepared statements
• In lacking prepared statements, requires the use of escaping functions for any SQL containing POST/GET variables
• Read functions overwrite duplicate column names in returned data when reading rows from joined tables
• Has a very verbose API, with many long parameter lists
• Is not class based, so everyone bakes their own abstraction

Compared to the Perl DBI, for example, Php’s mysql_ functions are absolutely horrid. Luckily there are many great alternatives, as I discovered this weekend with a bit of research.

The PDO

Php’s PDO functions are similar to Perl’s DBI, sporting a reasonable API and supporting a number of databases.

Php’s improved MySQL functions

Php has an improved set of MySQL functions (the mysqli_ functions) that add both a simple class wrapper and a parallel, improved API. The new API supports prepared statements, and has a cleaner interface layout. The new APIs still munge the fetch_assoc functions (they still overwrite), but are otherwise a great improvement.

The improved MySQL functions are only available in Php 5, and I’ve read warnings that it’s a pain to run both the msql_ and mysqli_ functions from one Php installation.

Pear’s MDB2

The MDB2 package from the Pear repository replaces their previous DB package, and provides a similar interface to Perl’s DBI. I find the interface a bit bigger than my needs present, but it is a very complete and mature abstraction.

In the real world

All of these libraries are available on most platforms and from most reasonable webhosts (like Dreamhost).

My first choice so far is the improved mysqli_ class/functions, then the built-in PDO library. I’ll spend a few weeks with them and then post a follow-up.

Let’s get a real database, a story about Google choosing a ‘real’ database over MySql (for Adwords) and then the developers regretting it.

Building a Weblog with PHP and MySQL. DIY weblogging, a good, motivated project if you need a reason to learn Php+MySQL.

PHP Login System with Admin Features, a reasonable sample Php/Mysql login class (including source). A good starting point for newish Php developers.