maria-discuss team mailing list archive

[Sergei Golubchik <serg@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Ricky!

On Oct 13, Ricky B wrote:
> Thanks for the write up Colin.
> 
> I had known about TokuDB potentially being dropped due to lack of
> developers and support. Understandable, but a real shame. At least rocksdb
> has a backup tool and some fun snapshot features.

There is development and support for TokuDB. The main reason for
dropping it could be RocksDB based engine covering all TokuDB use cases,
but better. I mean, *if* RocksDB will be able to do that, then TokuDB
won't be needed (it's *if*, not a certainty).

> What I really want to know is, what's the future of transactional DDL
> in MariaDB (MDEV-4259) with the impending changes in MySQL 8? How much
> of that is going to be merged with MariaDB?

Current understanding is - not much of it. We seem to be going different
path. MySQL is moving everything into InnoDB - one engine to rule them
all. System tables are in InnoDB, data dictionary is is InnoDB,
temporary tables - too. And so on. New storage engine API extensions
work only for InnoDB. The manual has a chapter on InnoDB and a chapter
on "alternative storage engines".

MariaDB - currently - tries to treat all engines equally. More or less.
New storage engine API extensions work for all capable engines - almost
always for more than one. New features are added in the engine
independent way. And so on. For example, in MariaDB one can use InnoDB
for system tables too. Always could, even in 5.5, it's not a new
feature. There is no code that limits system tables to a specific
storage engine. FRM files in MariaDB are optional since 10.0. But it
depends on the engine, and InnoDB relies on FRM files in MariaDB. May be
we will change it in 10.3, then InnoDB tables won't use FRM files
anymore and DDLs will be atomic and may be, in some later version, even
transactional.

Regards,
Sergei
Chief Architect MariaDB
and security@xxxxxxxxxxx