MySQL (aka, Oracle) has announced a preview of features for the next major release of the MySQL database application, version 5.6. As every company pretty much says about every new release, one focus is on improved performance. Of course. But the most interesting change will be support for full-text searching with InnoDB tables. Historically, MyISAM was the default table type, with the best performance and support for full-text searching. For a long time, InnoDB was the most popular other option, and was the storage engine (aka table type) of choice if you need to perform transactions. The MySQL documentation now claims that InnoDB performs better than MyISAM, although I take that claim with a grain of salt as Oracle bought InnoDB a few years ago, prior to their acquisition of Sun (and therefore MySQL). In any case, should MySQL 5.6, when it comes out in a few months, allow for full-text searching of InnoDB tables, that may be the nail in the coffin of the MyISAM table type. On the other hand, full-text searching in MySQL is of limited use as is, so this addition may not have that big of an impact. Regardless of the impact, I know many people are just waiting for MySQL to shrivel up and die from a lack of Oracle backing, a death not likely to come in the foreseeable future.
