Preface
A gap in MySQL literature exists between basic MySQL knowledge and
advanced MySQL performance. There are several books about the former,
and one book about the latter: High Performance MySQL, 4th Edition, by
Silvia Botros and Jeremy Tinley (O’Reilly). This is the first book to bridge
the gap.
The gap exists because MySQL is complex, and it’s difficult to teach
performance without addressing that complexity—the proverbial elephant
in the room. But engineers using (not managing) MySQL should not need
to become MySQL experts to achieve remarkable MySQL performance. To
bridge the gap, this book is unapologetically efficient—pay no attention to
the elephant; it’s friendly.
Efficient MySQL performance means focus: learning and applying only the
best practices and techniques that directly affect remarkable MySQL
performance. Focus dramatically narrows the scope of MySQL complexity
and allows me to show you a much simpler and faster path through the vast
and complex field of MySQL performance. The journey begins with the
first sentence of Chapter 1, “Performance is query response time.” From
there, we move fast through indexes, data, access patterns, and a lot more.
On a scale of one to five—where one is an introduction for anyone, and five
is a deep dive for aspiring experts—this book ranges from three to four:
deep, but far from the bottom. I presume that you’re an experienced
engineer who has basic knowledge of and experience with a relational
database (MySQL or otherwise), so I do not explain SQL or database
fundamentals. I presume that you’re an accomplished programmer who is
responsible for one or more applications that use MySQL, so I continually
reference the application and trust that you know the details of your
application. I also presume that you’re familiar with computers in general,
so I talk freely about hardware, software, networks, and so forth.
