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Results for “which MySQL version used in Dev” poll

Here are the results for this poll, as described in my post some weeks back.

So in a nutshell (see the original post for more info), the question was what MySQL version people currently use in development. Turns out that 64% uses 5.0, 19% uses 5.1, and the rest is small fry. It’s a fairly small sample anyway (like most polls), but still I find the 3:1 ratio fairly significant.

Traditionally, it’s been the going thing to just use the latest MySQL development version for development, even in its very first alpha versions. MySQL 4.0.x was a fab example of that, as Jeremy Zawodny (then Yahoo), Peter Zaitsev, and quite a few others will remember. Where has that “we’ll try it and report the bugs” gone? Is it just a matter of the market growing up and taking fewer risks, or is there something else going on, driving those choices?

Ronald Bradford wrote why he recommends 5.1. While I haven’t yet gone as far as that, I do agree with his general analysis. I find the new engine plugins the most interesting, the rest of the new features (like partitioning) not so much. And the remaining serious bugs may be more related to the new features.

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