It occurred to me on the drive home tonight that quite a few of people have been getting into MySQL lately. A couple people have been asking about reference materials and I thought it might be handy to send out a general notice thing. (Note: this was originally an email sent to a mailing list at work.) I have a couple books, two web sites, and a personal online cheat sheet to recommend.

Web site #1:

Very good stuff for beginners. It aims a bit low for more advanced stuff, but presents quite a range of material in a very readable way. I've found myself going back to it for things I don't really have to remember (but maybe should). Very tutorial-ish. If you go in for that sort of thing, then the site should be useful. I do, and it is. Oh yeah, DevShed also has a good set of PHP (and various other) tutorials.

Web site #2:

This is from O'Reilly, and is maybe a bit more advanced than DevShed. The format is a little harder for me to accept, and maybe is kinda light, but if you want to learn about something "hard to search Google for" -- like why a statement that contains "... where (table1.field1=table2.field1)" is the same as an inner join -- then this is the place to go. Illustrates more conceptual information, which is nice once you're past the basics and want to get a higher level view.

Book #1:

If you're planning anything webbish with MySQL, then you should look at PHP. This book is real good at walking people through both MySQL and PHP, which is no mean feat. Well worth the read, good as a reference. I'd buy from bookpool.com since they are really cheap.

Book #2:

Perl does a lot of work, MySQL lets perl do even more. I've got a soft spot in my heart for perl just because it's so versatile. If I met a new "web programmer" tomorrow, I'd be half-to-three-quarters tempted to recommend that (s)he learn perl instead of PHP. Knowing a little perl helps in other areas, and can do a lot in the dynamic web site area. This book is about half full of practical examples and recipes, which I've found interesting. The strangest chapter, for me, is one which details an "online product registration system", which when combined with an ecommerce system (that is detailed in another chapter) comprises just about what I did in my last year and a half at Eudora, using exactly the software they mention. Except I had to make it up as I went along, like the author; I did some things very differently (we used VPN/tunneling and port forwarding all over the place). It's always nice to be validated in print. :-)

My Cheat Sheet:

Oddly, what started this email is going to get the shortest entry in it. It's a real simple list of MySQL stuff that I cribbed a while back and have added to in various ways. I use this to remember the mundane for me. I'm going to be adding more to it in the near future.

And finally, the horses's mouth. Not a recommendation, just stating the obvious. :-)

Oh yeah, don't let any of this get in the way of a good Google search. There are bazillions of resources out there that have good info. These are just ones I know off the top of my head. And if you find one, feel free to share.