Richard Jones' Log: MySQL "gotchas" page

Wed, 21 Apr 2004

Anthony pointed me at this page of MySQL gotchas. In short, the author has found aspects of MySQL that in any other RDBMS would be considered "bugs" but in MySQL they're "gotchas".

The contents listing includes "What goes in - isn't (always) what comes out" and "Silent Column Specification Changes". And the "February 31st" entry really has to be read to be believed. As the author puts it in considering one of the gotchas, "Whoops, no InnoDB table support":

This gotcha is true to MySQL's apparent design philosophy: "if it's not supported, do the next best thing. Silently."

Hmm. There's a definite parallel between MySQL and Perl here... whereas my Python-wired "explicit is better than implicit" brain balks at this kind of behaviour...

Of course, I'd have to add to this page my own experiences dropping databases, though I'm pretty sure this is actually a bug, even if the developers refuse to acknowledge it exists.

Update: I missed the link to this other page.