Finally, after several months of waiting, MySQL 5.0 is here. What makes this release worthy of celebration?

As people would remember, there are two popular Open Source database systems that are usually implemented in student projects and UP’s IT infrastructure: PostGreSQL and MySQL. They have been branded as having niches, PostGreSQL’s would be at the enterprise, as set by the CRS Team and DEEERS. The main advantages of PostgreSQL in this aspect are the plethora of advanced database features such as table inheritance, views and triggers among others.

MySQL, on the other hand, had been thought of as the preference for personal and small to medium sized web applications due to its claim for speed and performance. Admittedly, the elephant (the logo of PostgreSQL) tramples the dolphin in data crunching and manipulation, but the dolphin (the icon that represents MySQL) gets much ahead in terms of speed. MySQL, or at least until version 4.x, lacks the features of PostgreSQL needed for enterprise use.

MySQL 5.0 is to change all of that.

From their site (http://dev.mysql.com/):

MySQL 5.0 Key Features

* Stored Procedures (not bad, not bad)
* Triggers
* Views (at long last!)
* Information Schema
* Archive Storage Engine

If only it can implement table inheritance for me… =)