MySQL Founder: Write code better than playing games, programmers should soak up the open source community

Wang Lianpublished on September 04, 2017 Favorites

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According to StackOverflow's latest survey, MySQL is still the world's most popular database, with 44.3% of the developers surveyed using more than the second SQL Server 10多个百分点. But do you know how MySQL was born? Openocean's biography of Michael "Monty" Widenius, a MySQL developer, is revealing.

The number of college computer majors always fluctuates with the rise and fall of technology companies, and now computer science is in its heyday. This means that, in any case, most of the graduates of computer science majors may be knocking over 2 years of code, then going to product management, then transitioning to business, entrepreneurship or business school, then to the middle management of existing companies, marrying at 32, having 2 children, a son, a daughter, a dog, There is also a beautiful 2-storey house. For most people, being a programmer is a nine-to-five job, a guaranteed 6-digit salary to pay for high tuition, a means of achieving an end, and no one should be blamed for it. But for thousands of programmers, good or bad, there is only one Monty Widenius.

Monty is a programming genius. At the age of 19, he dropped out of the Helsinki Polytechnic University and started working full-time because there was nothing to teach him at the university. After writing all the code except for a library, he released MySQL at the age of 33 and later became the most popular open source database in the world. At the age of 55, he despised discrimination against the elderly and remained the best programmer of his company.

Monty1962 was born in Helsinki in 1978, he bought his first personal computer with the money he earned on his summer vacation. Monty quickly realized that he was pretty good at writing code-he thought it was easy for someone else to be very complicated, and he was very devoted to his work. "Basically it's like reading a really very, very good book," Monty, speaking in a strong accent that is common in Swedish-speaking Finns. Or like playing video games. Do you know how it feels to start playing games and then bang a 3-hour time? Writing code is the way it feels to me. ”

While others ran to the party, Monty stayed at home programming. He learned the computer from the inside out. He pushed the ability of basic to the limit. "Schools don't understand that programming is not something like language or history, it's not learned by learning," says Monty. So the school is not enough. Top-notch hackers are miles to pick one. They dedicate all the time they can use, 10 hours, 16 hours, every day, and then again and again. Most people are reluctant to do such a thing. Most people prefer to live a good life. "In Monty's Eyes, a good code is one that has been written once and never needs to be touched again." From a performance point of view it has been optimized and you can continue to enhance it, but never need to rewrite it.

By 1980, the 17-year-old Monty obsession with programming, he needed to expand his computer's memory from 8KB to 16KB. Since Finland did not have a store to sell what he wanted, he took a boat to the computer store in Allan Larsson, Sweden. Through Allan,monty met David Axmark, three people communicate for many years, on their respective projects to help each other, occasionally will work together. In 1995, they set up MySQL AB together. Monty is responsible for programming, and David and Allan are responsible for doing other things. Since 1981, Monty has been working as a Finnish company Tapio Laakso Oy programmer to write the code of the MySQL predecessor, and the Data Warehouse company he and Allan are using. However, knowing 1995, after Allan and David's lobbying, Monty decided to add a SQL layer on top of what he wrote. In October 1996, MySQL was finally released, and it was widely welcomed. MySQL is fast, reliable and easy to learn, mainly because in the years of development Monty has always been integrating feedback from customers.

MySQL was originally designed to store and manage big data. If someone wants to track different data points, they use a database, which is something like Microsoft Excel. However, as the data gets bigger, finding a database like Excel becomes much slower and less reliable. MySQL has the ability to store large amounts of data and return search results extremely quickly. "My" comes from the name of the Monty daughter, and "SQL" is the meaning of the Structured Query language (structured queries Language), a language that communicates with the database.

The decision to open source for MySQL comes from another Finnish-Swedish boat trip in 1985, this time at an open-source conference. "The discussion didn't take many minutes," Monty said. We all want to give something back to the open source community. Even if someone wants to copy or steal our code, we think we can make less money than we do now. "Open source projects enable the developer community to help make the software better, but from a business perspective it is much more difficult to monetize." To avoid this, Monty added a clause that would require a paid license if any enterprise uses MySQL to make money. There are no restrictions on this MySQL code, but this honor system MySQL has expanded and started making money. "I think open source is a better way to develop software," Monty said. But you still need to make enough money to recruit employees and set up a company to compete with the closed-source community. MySQL is the first product to do this. ”

Monty's position at MySQL AB is CTO, and for most mature companies, the CTO has rarely been programmed. However, Monty never stopped, and most of his time was written in code. This (rarely managed) approach leads to many late-stage startups implosion, but even if the number of companies has reached 550, Monty's unique culture in MySQL AB has allowed him to avoid the hassle of meeting every day (in fact, Monty doesn't even accept an agenda invitation). Monty said: "I always recruit people who will automatically drive in." So I don't have to tell them too much stuff. And open source means that you have an open source community, you will be provided with code, you can look at the quality of the code, see how they interact with the community, and how you communicate, they will ask what questions, in these cases it is easy to see whether a person is good or bad. It's hard to know how good the coder is in an interview. ”

MySQL's success is the result of the collaboration between CTO Monty and CEO M?rten Mickos. Both are strong and important to the company, but in a different way. Monty is a technical expert who specializes in producing the best possible code for their employees. M?rten is a company builder, focused on delivering things and helping teams develop. It was the joint vision of the two who made MySQL. But in a company that does not have free laundry, free lunch, and a standing desk, Monty's personal charm attracts talent. Monty is not a good social fundraising person, a person who pleases others, a master of game theory, or a professional communicator. He can write code, and he writes it well. It's easy to win the developer's respect in Monty: "You did the same thing, and you did better." ”

Monty's advice to programmers is to get involved in the open source community and spend some time in a personal project ("I've developed hundreds of programs over the years: MySQL is one of the most used, but the rest is for me.") ”）。 He warns that changing the environment and code base will mean that even the best programmers have to get to know a bunch of things. After Sun was acquired by Oracle, Monty set up MARIADB, a community-based branch of MySQL, where many of the team members were developed by the MySQL team, using the same official language: "Crappy English". Many of the enthusiastic open source followers of MySQL followed Monty to Mariadb. MARIADB is more developer-oriented, allowing outsiders to patch things like this, and in many Linux distributions it's the default database.

Monty's commitment to open source and developers is firm--openocean originally Monty with his own in MySQL, the mission is to devote to the developer-driven, technical depth of the product. He is still hosting the developer lunch at his home in Helsinki, and soon Openocean will launch a slack channel so developers can ask Monty directly. For decades, Monty's contribution to shaping the selfless image of the open source community is indisputable. But the bulk of this credit should be attributed to thousands of unknown programmers and hackers, the time and power they invest in creating open source prosperity and the ability of these people to ensure the continuation of the open source revolution.

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Original link: https://blog.openocean.vc/founder-stories-a-hackers-hacker-6d5054c90564

MySQL Founder: Write code better than playing games, programmers should soak up the open source community