As I previously anticipated, MySQL has proven to be a difficult language to learn. I’ve familiarised myself with most of the basic commands used to create and modify databases and tables, along with carrying out simple SELECT queries to retrieve data. I followed the examples provided in the book and I was honestly quite alarmed by the number of typographical errors that there were. Most of these were small mistakes, but the frustration brought about by them was rather disruptive to the overall learning process. Considering that it’s the second edition of this book, I can empathise with the other readers and agree that it deserves a poor rating for the straightforward mistakes and spelling errors, especially those in the code examples provided.
Another vexing incident which cost me a few hours of my time was when phpMyAdmin and MySQL decided not to work together. I can’t really pinpoint where the problem was, but it had something to do with a missing MySQL extension that phpMyAdmin was unable to find. I googled for a solution naturally, and despite repeatedly moving dynamic link library (.dll) files around and editing the PHP configuration file, I was still unable to fix the problem.
Things got worse when in a moment of sheer stupidity, I somehow decided that it was Apache’s fault and made the brilliant move of reinstalling my server while forgetting to edit the httpd file subsequently. More anxiety ensued as the server was now unable to load .php files, and my vexation began tearing at me. Long story short, the problem was eventually solved when I reinstalled PHP with the necessary extensions, modified the httpd and php.ini files accordingly and overwrote PHP’s libmysql.dll with the one from the MySQL installation. Or something like that.
Anyway, in order to utilise the partial knowledge I had gained so far on querying databases, I decided to expand one of the code examples given to create something useful. I thought about a tool that I might need and this led to the idea of WebsiteDB, which is essentially a repository of my favourite websites. While I use Delicious to bookmark specific articles and pages, I plan to use this website database to store notable and interesting sites, especially startups or any other useful web applications and services that I come across on HN.
As I developed this tool mainly for myself, I settled on a simple design with large typography and a lot of whitespace. It’s not perfected, and definitely has room for improvement with regards to the querying, but so far I’m pretty satisfied with how it works. This is the first PHP/MySQL site that I’ve developed, and I’m certain that it won’t be my last.
Tags: Apache, Delicious, HN, MySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin, WebsiteDB
