Thanks to Jim Starkey, the Father of Falcon
June 11, 2008
Jim Starkey joined MySQL about 2 1/2 years ago when MySQL acquired his startup company, Netfrastructure. Jim has a long history in the database industry having created several major databases over the years and we wanted him to take the core engine of Netfrastructure and integrate it into MySQL. This became the Falcon project, which is now in Beta as part of MySQL 6.0 and is targeted at web applications and designed to exploit modern multi-core multi-processor systems. I expect we'll see more updates to Falcon in the coming months as part of the 6.0 release process. The next release will be 6.0.5 (in the next week or so) which will include many Falcon bug fixes, performance improvements as well as new backup capabilities.
Jim has always been a classic entrepreneur at heart. He's been a great technologist and architect for Falcon but I think he prefers coding something new to dealing with meetings. So, while it's a disappointment that Jim has decided to leave MySQL, it's not a complete surprise. Over the past year two years, we've built an entire team around Falcon and Jim's been able to step back from some of the day to day grind and let others shine. Ann Harrison, who was also part of Netfrastructure is continuing in her role and we've got quite a bit of home grown talent as well as new engineers from Sun helping out on Falcon. I'm sure Jim will continue to be active in the MySQL community and provide his insight and guidance when we need it. And maybe we can save some really hard bugs for Jim to fix.
If Jim's past is any predictor of his future efforts, I'm sure he'll have some exciting new technology coming out at some point. It's been great to work with him and we wish Jim all the best in his new project.
In the meantime, I remain excited about Falcon as well as the many storage engines that keep popping up, ranging from our oldest and most mature storage engine InnoDB that keeps innovating, to the latest version of PBXT as well as specialized engines for data warehousing like Infobright and Kickfire.
Save some really hard bugs for him? Maybe. But he'll probably declare they aren't really bugs.
Posted by: Snarkey | June 11, 2008 at 03:13 PM
No need to save some really hard bugs for him.
The main cause of Falcon bugs has left the project.
Posted by: Querulus | June 13, 2008 at 12:30 AM
@Querulus
can you explain to the rest of the community (and me), what you have enriched the world with. Something making your star shining so bright that it entitles you to speak about Jim in such manner.
Please enlighten, I really don't want to think of you as a stupid, jealous egghead, just posting ridiculous comments.
Posted by: Schnorpfeil | June 13, 2008 at 10:05 AM
@Querulus
yapping is free, show any evidence that you have to backup your comments or just Shut up ! Every decent IT professional who's been working with database knows what Jim's contribution is. what about yours?
Posted by: ash | June 15, 2008 at 11:47 AM
Dumbasses, he means there are only bugs in Falcon because of Jim Starkey.
This should be pretty damn obvious to somebody who isn't retarded like you are. After all, if Falcon didn't exist, it couldn't have any bugs in it!!! =)
Posted by: lol | July 13, 2008 at 12:46 AM
@All
"... Falcon bugs has left the project"
...so the challenge(s) has gone either. That's why Jim just left the project, seeking any bugs to be solved somewhere.
Posted by: lalijiwo | September 06, 2008 at 05:19 PM
Much ado about nothing. The infighting is among a group supporting the project and appreciating the pioneer. Any intentional slight would be put in the wrong place here unless someone just wanted attention.
John
Posted by: john from backupanytime | September 16, 2008 at 10:09 AM
Great work.
Posted by: Mirabelle | October 27, 2008 at 09:43 AM