Nearly every non-trivial application requires data persistence, and for an application of any significant size and scope, persistence is typically achieved using a database. If you’re building or maintaining any significant application and are using MySQL, this book is for you. For open source and other types of projects, the MySQL database is a very popular choice: it’s free; fast, robust, and scalable; and it runs on all of the major platforms, allowing maximum use of available hardware resources. But it’s easy to disregard MySQL’s speed and other advantages if your database design is inefficient. Needlessly duplicating data, using improper types for columns, overloading a single table where multiple tables should be used, failing to leverage the calculation features of MySQL, and making multiple queries instead of an efficient single query are some of the common mistakes.

Beginning MySQL Database Design and Optimization shows you how to identify, overcome, and avoid gross inefficiencies. It demonstrates how to maximize the many data manipulation features that MySQL includes. This book explains how to include tests and branches in your queries, how to normalize your database, and how to issue concurrent queries to boost performance, among many other design and optimization topics. You’ll also learn about some features new to MySQL 4.1 and 5.0 like subqueries, stored procedures, and views, all of which will help you build even more efficient applications.

Nearly every non-trivial application requires data persistence, and for an application of any significant size and scope, persistence is typically realized using a database. For open source and many other projects, the MySQL database is a very popular choice: it’s free; it’s fast, robust, and scalable; and it runs on all of the major platforms, allowing maximal use of available hardware resources. However, it’s easy to throw away MySQL’s speed and other advantages if your database design is inefficient. Needlessly duplicating data, using improper types for columns, overloading a single table where multiple tables should be used, failing to leverage the calculation features of MySQL, and making multiple queries instead of efficient, single query are some of the common mistakes.

MySQL Database Design and Optimization, shows you how to identify, overcome, and avoid gross inefficiencies, and demonstrates how to maximize the many data manipulation features that MySQL has built-in. MySQL Database Design and Optimization explains how to include tests and branching in your queries, how to normalize your database, and how to issue concurrent queries to boost performance, among many other design and optimization topics. If you’re building or maintaining any significant application and are using MySQL, this book is for you.

Good for basics, not up-to-date for recent releases
As a working professional database developer/DBA, I should have noticed that every other review about this book is at least three years old, most almost four. This book was written to be used with MySQL V4.0, with look-aheads to 4.1 and 5.0. Version 5.0 has been released for almost two years now, and V6 is on the near horizon. A lot has changed in terms of optimization and feature sets. I sincerely hope that the authors will consider updating this work so that it is more current in terms of tuning and features. If you are new to MySQL, use the book as a basis for solid SQL and design principles; if you are more experienced, perhaps just reading and studying the 5.1 and 6.0 docs from MySQL AB would serve you better.

Lee Parmenter, CMA

Great Introduction to MySQL
As a beginner to MySQL I bought this book to gain an insight into the how’s and why’s of using MySQL. Overall having read the book from cover to cover ( a first for me as far as computer books go ) I can thoroughly recommend this book to anyone new to using MySQL. The layout is clear, the text easily readable, not too techie at first but still a great deal of examples for you to get up and running.
The writing style is easy going but not preaching and all topics are treated in an easy to grasp manner.
The only down side is that it doesn’t cover programming MySQL using Visual Basic although several other languages are covered well.
Overall a great book for the newbie and intermediate user.

5 stars for novice to intermediate 4 for professionals
The first three chapters of this book deal with the basics of MySQL including basic concepts, column and table types, keys, indexes, and normalization. The authors have written an excellent introduction to MySQL that provides all the core information you need to start using it right away. The chapter on finding the bottlenecks is one of the best sections in the book and details some of the finer points to be considered when creating your database. On the other hand, the part on optimizing queries is excellent for the beginning MySQL student (which is the target audience for this book) but not as good as it could be for the more experienced MySQL user. Perhaps I am just more sensitive to this area because of all the badly done queries I have had to deal with before. A good understanding of just this part can make a tremendous difference in optimization. If you are new to SQL queries the authors have done a great job of explaining why this is important and how to understand it when a query takes under a minute to run and then after a small change takes twenty. The last section covers accessing the MySQL database via other programming languages such as PHP. Beginning MySQL Database Design and Optimization is a recommended read for its target audience - the beginning MySQL programmer.

improve your MySQL usage
If you already know the basics of MySQL, then this book can be a nifty boost to your productivity. The authors plow straight into giving good tips for better table design. For example, the first chapter covers MySQL basics. But it furnishes very understandable advice. Like never using spaces in identifier names. While MySQL permits this, it greatly increases chances of logic errors.

Later in the book are far more complicated tips. Crucially, on how to optimise complex queries. While SQL notation is standard across vendors, each database has different ways to best phrase queries. So since you have committed to using MySQL, it helps to know what are best here.

The authors also instruct in how to hook up to external languages like PHP, Perl and Python. (What is it about all these languages that start with P?) Each has its adherents and is quite popular. So they try to give coverage of the combinations with MySQL.

More basics than design and optimization
I was hoping that there would be more about designing databases. Though I was pleasantly surprised at the solid introduction to MySQL that the book gives. In fact it spends the first two thirds of the book on the basics, before getting into optimization and finally programming.

The design aspect of the book is in the third chapter, which is one of the books best. There is some good high level material on the fundamentals of schema design, and then material on relation mapping, and then into it’s implementation in MySQL.

There is a lot to like in this book. And I like the fact that someone is finally giving some attention to MySQL, which, if it’s not the most advanced database in the world, is probably the most ubiquitous. This is a fine book for anyone who works with MySQL.

Good Book Overall!
I had the pleasure of doing the technical review for this book, and I found it to be a great resource for those who have already had their first taste of MySQL and are looking to improve the design and performance of their databases.

There is good coverage of normalization and advanced MySQL features, and the information contained within is great for those looking to advance their existing knowledge. The book may have the word Novice in the title, but you should have some knowledge of the basics of SQL and MySQL before using this book. If you know how to perform basic queries but want to ensure that your database is well designed look here.

There is good discussion of INDEXing, and using SQL more effectively in order to take work away from client applications and put it in the database where it belongs.

The book is a good read and is not a rehash of the manual. The authors have a nice writing style that makes it easy to understand the concepts presented.