A few weeks ago I got a copy of "High Performance MySQL" (from now on referred to as HPM) and just the other day they also send me "Refactoring SQL Applications" (aka "RSA"). Actually I had a copy of HPM at the office already, but its nice to have my own, seeing that its already severely beating up from having to live in my backup. Good to have a neat copy for the company book shelve. I have gotten to chapter 4. So far there has not been all that much earth shattering, but considering the hours I spend reading posts on planetmysql, I guess its not a huge surprise. But at the same time there is also nothing I feel is missing, so in the sense this book fulfills my expectations 100%: its a well written summary of advanced techniques that people have found in the trenches. And yes of course I did learn a few things still.

For example I was not entirely up to snuff with MyISAM's index prefix compression and recent advances in index merging. In terms of criticism there isn't much to say. I found the discussion about hot spots due to clustered indexing a bit needlessly scattered. I also did not like the definition of a "cost based" optimizer ideal. But in the end all the content is there so this is really just nitpicking (especially since writing a book you have to take all sorts of considerations in mind).

In terms of RSA I have gotten to chapter 2. So far a nice read. I really like the initial example. The second part of chapter 1 however seemed focus on situations that I am facing less: Convincing someone that re-factoring is better than buying hardware. To be fair he actually talks about how to estimate possible improvements and to control expectations. What I definitely like about RSA is that the book is small enough to not feel like a brick in my backpack. Come on publishers, please risk it and release books as a series and keep them to 250 pages max, please! After my initial excitement has died down a bit about HPM I am having a harder and harder time envisioning myself putting this book back into my backpack. Which means I will probably never finish reading it. So I guess it will be more of a place to go in desperate times and not a read through type of book. Fair enough I guess.

I actually just placed an order High Performance MySQL 2nd Edition a few minutes ago (before reading this, though) and am really excited about it, so it's good to know other people have liked it.