Xaprb

I don’t think I have heard anything from the Falcon team for a while. What’s new? Did the project really stall when Jim Starkey left, as Vadim Tkachenko wondered might happen?

Download Maatkit

There’s a new release with a lot of goodies — speed, efficiency, user-friendliness, and new features. In particular some of Percona’s clients have sponsored features for things they need such as the ability to more frequently verify that slaves are in sync with their masters. If you need features, please ask Percona about it.

Daniel Nichter has written most of the code for this release. Having a dedicated developer is really moving the project forward. Thanks Daniel!

If you check the issues list on the project’s website you’ll see we have some ambitious plans for the project, mostly driven by real-world needs from Percona’s clients, many of whom run very large data centers and such. It makes me really happy that Maatkit is solving serious problems for which no other solution exists.

Here’s the changelog:

If you thought the activity around planning OpenSQL Camp 2008 had slacked off, it’s only because I’m both moving to a new house and traveling for business, so I haven’t blogged about it. In reality I’m not (and shouldn’t be!) the main driving force behind this event, so my lack of blogging doesn’t reflect anything about it, really.

That said, I’d like to renew the call for really great sessions, especially from people who have built open-source databases. I think at present it looks like we will have just one track of sessions, not two; we will also have a smaller room where some impromptu stuff can take place. If you want to present something please jump on the mailing list. If you have something you can present intelligently on and you don’t feel particularly called to do it yourself, please consider doing it anyway; it’s a great way to be of service to others. Some of the un-conferences I’ve gone to have ended up having rooms full of people who want to learn about something, but no one in the room who knows anything. One of the hopes for this conference is to avoid this — but doing so requires the experts to give generously of their time and energy.

It’s also getting to be time to start looking at planning and getting sponsorship for meals, etc. We have a number of people who’ve offered to sponsor meals (or just to sponsor whatever’s needed) and the missing ingredient is leadership to line these people up in front of the needs.

I’m traveling this week, and once I get back I hope to put a bunch of time into the project myself. But there’s no need to wait — go ahead and do it without me.

Is there anyone out there who has attended what they consider to be a really dynamite hackfest/hackathon? Better yet, planned one? Do you have any advice for this event? Would you consider taking a leadership role on making Sunday really productive? In your opinion, what characteristics could be cultivated Saturday and Friday to make Sunday a success?