Some Words of Advice for Developers
By definition, everyone is new to the world of MySQL stored program development, because stored programs are themselves new to MySQL. However, Guy and Steven have both had plenty of experience in stored program development within other relational databases. Steven, in particular, has been a key figure in the world of Oracle PL/SQL (Oracle's stored program language) development for more than a decade. We hope that you will find it helpful if we share some advice with you on how you can work more effectively with this powerful MySQL programming language.
Don't Be in Such a Hurry!
We are almost always working under tight deadlines, or playing catch-up from one setback or another. We have no time to waste, and lots of code to write. So let's get right to it—right?
Wrong. If we dive too quickly into the depths of code construction, slavishly converting requirements to hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of lines of code, we will end up with a total mess that is almost impossible to debug and maintain. Don't respond to looming deadlines with panic; you are more likely to meet those deadlines if you do some careful planning.
We strongly encourage you to resist these time pressures and make sure to do the following before you start a new application, or even a specific program in an application:
- Construct test cases and test scripts before you write your code
You should determine how you want to verify a successful implementation before you write ...