Learning MySQL and MariaDB

Foreword

Before you begin to read the main chapters of this book to learn about MySQL and MariaDB, it might be useful to understand what we were trying to accomplish when we first created MySQL about 20 years ago and MariaDB about 5 years ago, as well as the current state of these database systems and my expectations of them going forward. And I’d like to encourage you in your decision to learn these database systems and to assure you that they will be in use for a long time and that you will benefit from the time and energy you put into reading this book and learning what it has to teach you.

Origins of MySQL

When my business partner David Axmark and I started MySQL, there weren’t any good, free, open source database systems. There was mSQL, which wasn’t open source, but it inspired us to create a new database system for our clients, which would later become MySQL. We had no plans to do anything more with this embryo of MySQL other than satisfy the needs of our clients. We were learning, discovering, and creating out of practical concerns and needs, much as you might and perhaps should be doing as a reader of this book and a newcomer to MySQL and MariaDB.

Although we had accomplished our task in creating a straightforward database to meet our requirements, it wasn’t long before we noticed that there were many other organizations that were looking for a solution similar to what we had already developed. So we decided to make the software available to the public and we named it MySQL ...