Cool Tools for MySQL

As a big part of my job as a web developer is working with MySQL to manage data for applications, it is critical that I have the database interface tools that let me do the development work easily.

When I first started out I tried a whole bunch of different tools, downloaded from the web. Nothing worked the way I wanted. Some were just too buggy, others were cripple-ware. And others were just too expensive to a lowly paid developer just starting out.

MySQL talked about building a GUI, but that was years away. So what was I to do?

Well it’s obvious – build my own damn GUI. And that’s what I did. And it has served me very well. It works the way I want t to, and if there are any bugs in it, it’sMY fault!!

But for the project I’m working o at work I needed a tool the clients could use that did things my development interface doesn’t (yet).

So it was off to my mate Google to see what was out there.

And surprise, surprise, MySQL had got their GUI going. And it’s good!!!

The MySQL GUI Tools app rocks!! There is an administration interface for managing the server and databases including backup and resorting. I was really impressed with this. A full backup of the database I’m working on took about 20-30 seconds, and it’s not a small database!!
Restore took about 13 seconds!!

The Query Browser application is also quite nice. It’s not quite what I need sometimes in that the queries are displayed using tabs, so you can’t have two queries side by side. This is something I can do with my interface, and I use it a lot to run scenarios and compare results.
But despite having my own interface, which I admit I might be a bit biased towards, I still find myself using the MySQL tools more and more.

There is also an application called Workbench for doing database design. It’s also nice and easy to use and is just what I was looking for.

And what’s the best thing about all these tools? They are FREE!! For no money, no ads, no popups, no cripple-ware, just all the good stuff and none of the bad. How cool is that?
So if you use MySQL and you don’t have a copy of the MySQL GUI Tools run don’t walk to the MySQL site and get your copy today. You’ll be glad you did. 