The Bug Whisperer

For this episode, Fred and Scott are joined by Laurynas Biveinis - one of the most prolific individual contributors to MySQL Community. Take a listen as Laurynas discusses the process he uses when he discovers bugs and how he sets up tests for the engineering team.

 

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Episode Transcript:

00;00;09;14 - 00;00;36;00 

Unknown 

Welcome to Inside MySQL: Sakila Speaks, a podcast dedicated to all things MySQL. We bring you the latest news from the MySQL team, MySQL project updates and insightful interviews with members of the MySQL community. Sit back and enjoy as your hosts bring you the latest updates on your favorite open sourcedatabase. Let's get started! Hello and welcome to Sakila Speaks, the podcast dedicated to MySQL. 

 

00;00;36;07 - 00;01;13;06 

Unknown 

I am leFred and I'm Scott Stroz. Today we are thrilled to welcome Laurynas Biveinis 

 to our podcast.  Laurynas. He's a highly respected software engineer and a seasoned expert in database technologies, particularly MySQL. With a rich background in database internals, performance optimization and open source development. Laurynas has contributed extensively to the MySQL ecosystem. He has played a key role in announcing most performance and reliability to his work on project like the Percona server and other database innovation. 

 

00;01;13;08 - 00;01;45;08 

Unknown 

We are excited to dive into this highlight on MySQL, his evolution and the future of the database technology. Laurynas, you have been extremely active in helping improve MySQL and since April 2011, you have reported 444 bugs. First of all, I love the symmetry of the number of 444, but can you like, give us, a brief walkthrough of how you go about reporting the bugs? 

 

00;01;45;08 - 00;02;00;25 

Unknown 

Like, like what type of testing do you do? Do you set up some type of test framework or, or something? Because obviously, you know, you need to make sure that it can be repetitive and you have to report that stuff to, to the team. But just walk us through like your mental process that you, you, you do for that. 

 

00;02;00;28 - 00;02;30;28 

Unknown 

Hello. And, thanks for having me here. So to, to to answer the question about bug reporting. Whenever I notice that something is off, and I make a note of it, and I return to it later, and the majority of my bugs come from, either, documentation reading, either from the source code reading or from, running the source code, in the in a test framework. 

 

00;02;31;00 - 00;02;52;18 

Unknown 

So, the test framework gives something that, creates reproducible test cases. And if I can write one in the test case, in the, in the test framework, I do that and I submit that with a bug reports. And I know that your team immediately can, they can tell me whether they produce it or is, that they need something else for me. 

 

00;02;52;21 - 00;03;20;04 

Unknown 

So. So you are using MTR, as the the same framework as we do? Yeah. Most of the time I'm using MTR. So, but, so about all that, huge number of bugs that you report, you are also one of the most prolific contributors of my SQL with, 84 contributions in MySQL 8. So, why are you contributing so much and what type of contribution do you do usually for people that doesn't know you? 

 

00;03;20;06 - 00;03;48;09 

Unknown 

Well, so, these are usually bug fixes. Most of the time small but sometimes larger too. And over the years there have been a few performance  features contributor to. So the thing I like about contributing is that,contribution makes that code less of my problem and more of your problem. So, it's like a gifting a puppy. 

 

00;03;48;11 - 00;04;17;27 

Unknown 

And so now you have to take care of it, although you are happy you received it. I love that analogy. That's a that's a that's a analogy about open source, contributions. That's great. So I've seen that you, recently have been blogging quite a bit about, MySQL and Mac OS, which interests me because for work I use, a mac and obviously I have to run MySQL on that platform. 

 

00;04;18;00 - 00;04;48;15 

Unknown 

But usually MySQL is run on Linux. That's a probably. Linux is probably the most popular operating system on which to run MySQL. Why do you think that is? Well, it's won the server wars. Hasn't it? And with the, the newer with the new features, with, with the BPF and you're in it's, it gets better every day and there is no real competition for it in the server space. 

 

00;04;48;18 - 00;05;15;22 

Unknown 

But the thing I love about Mac is that, development is easier for me on the Mac, and the hardware is very good. The build times are excellent on, on the on the Apple silicon machines. So I like that, I can do it with the least friction and with the, the best the turnaround time from typing to testing. 

 

00;05;15;24 - 00;05;33;19 

Unknown 

So that's why I'm trying to do development on Mac to the extent that I can. Obviously, I have Linux machine store and obviously test there as it needs coming, but as long as I can stay on Mac, I'm happy. What I like about using a mac is that it is closer to a Linux environment than Windows is. That's true. 

 

00;05;33;24 - 00;05;53;13 

Unknown 

Like, you know, I, I could run a lot of the same commands on my Mac that I would run on a Linux instance, and they would both work exactly the same. You can't say that for windows for the most part. I haven't tried windows with the double WSL. Maybe it gets that true, but, I'm happy where I am and see, no need to switch. 

 

00;05;53;15 - 00;06;18;13 

Unknown 

So, Laurynas, so you are very active in the MySQL ecosystem, as we can see, and, for several years now, but,it seems you have been, away from the dolphin community, from August, 2019 to January 2020. So, because,I check the contribution, I check the bugs. And then you are back. So we are very happy of that. 

 

00;06;18;17 - 00;06;53;25 

Unknown 

So how do you explain this? Did you take some break or what happened? Well, it's like, explaining a gap on the CV in the job interview, isn't it? Yes. So, so I had that two and half  gap years where I was not working on MySQL, but I was working on the, the distributed, NoSQL key/value store, Aerospike and, did some do some engineering there, but, I think I missed MySQL and and I came back then you saw the light again and you follow it. 

 

00;06;54;00 - 00;07;17;27 

Unknown 

So one of the biggest changes in my SQL last year was the release of, the LTS that made a lot of enterprise users happy. What do you think about it? And I'm very lucky that as a software engineer, I don't have to run my SQL only to, to write code, but, I the I have talked to users, and I and I, I feel happy for them. 

 

00;07;17;28 - 00;07;46;00 

Unknown 

I think the rolling release model or fato times had its challenges and it was challenging to do patch level upgrades, which were not really patch level upgrades. So the, LTS model I would say is a welcome change. And and I'm, I'm happy that you did it. Thank you very much, Laurynas. And, to end, this podcast, I would just congratulate you because you just have received, a Rock star award. 

 

00;07;46;07 - 00;08;07;27 

Unknown 

So, congratulation. Thank you. That's that's, that's an honor. We are very happy to have you in the community. And everybody, likes you in the MySQL team, but also, around MySQL, when you talk to people, outside, MySQL. But they are part of the community. They all have, very kind words for Laurynas. 

 

00;08;08;00 - 00;08;25;20 

Unknown 

So, again, congratulations. And thank you very much to have you today with us, the podcast. That's a wrap on this episode of Inside My SQL: Sakila Speaks. Thanks for hanging out with us. If you enjoyed listening, please click subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We would also love your reviews and ratings on your podcast app. 

 

00;08;25;23 - 00;08;35;07 

Unknown 

Be sure to join us for the next episode of inside MySQL: Saklia Speaks