Interview with Mike Zinner

Mike Zinner leads the MySQL GUI development team, who are currently focusing on MySQL Workbench, a tool to visually design and view database schemas - the successor to Mike's own very successful DBDesigner4.

Mike, please tell us about what the GUI team works on?

We design and implement tools like the MySQL Administrator, MySQL Query Browser, MySQL Workbench, the MySQL Configuration Wizard, and more.

There are three other developers in my team: Alfredo Kojima, developer of WindowMaker, works on the Linux and OS X versions.

Mike Lischke, component guru, works with me on the Windows versions of the GUI tools.

Vladimir Kolesnikov, who works on Linux, Windows and OS X with the main focus on bugs, builds and new features.

What item that you were involved with are you most proud of?

The new MySQL Server Windows Installer + Configuration Wizard is a good example of how a simple but efficient GUI can speed up things and generate a better user experience.

Generally we in the GUI team try to deliver tools that fulfil the high expectation the server team is setting with their excellent product and enable our users to be even more productive.

We have created create a set of libraries and components that allow us to do optimized native implementations on each platform.

And it's looking good! And we'll talk more about the tools later.

But first, please tell us a bit more about yourself!

I am 30 years old and live in Vienna, Austria. My office is located 15km outside of Vienna in a smaller village in the middle of Vienna's forest area (Wienerwald). I like the silence out here and in summer I enjoy sitting in the garden with my ThinkPad and PowerBook.

I have a little sound studio and love to compose and record songs. I'm also into video production and graphical design. I love snowboarding, biking, bowling and snorkelling.

How do you like working for a virtual company like MySQL?

I like virtual company concept very much! It simply enables you to work with some of the most skilled and talented people on the planet – regardless where they are located. Especially for GUI development a distributed team is a great challenge, but with VoIP calls and VNC sessions it is doable.

How did you come to join MySQL AB?

I started using MySQL (from early 3.23 versions) because I was fed up with the totally overloaded commercial databases. I used it mainly for web applications, print run calculations and logging applications.

During my studies I founded my own company and apart from software development I was producing radio, TV and cinema commercials. After getting an offer which I could not turn down I was working for a local software distributor leading the software development department. Then, before coming to MySQL I was managing the IT department of one of Austria's biggest printing plants.

I had been working on an open source project called fabFORCE DBDesigner4 in my spare time. It was a visual databases designer for MySQL.

Georg Richter contacted me and invited me to the LinuxTag in Karlsruhe. There I met the guys from MySQL the first time. Some months later Kaj Arnö came to Vienna on vacation and after a

meeting I decided to quit my old job and join MySQL. That was October 2003.

If you are into Open Source development there are only a few companies out there that truly follow your passion. And MySQL is simply the best of them. I want to encourage everyone to join the Open Source spirit - because I think this is the future of software development. And to fight software patents.

For MySQL our community is very important and valuable. Every single employee is encouraged to do community work. So quite a few users will already have seen me speaking at a conference or read one of my posts in the forums at http://forums.mysql.com/.

Great! What are you currently working on?

The MySQL Workbench which is a tool to visually design a database schema, the successor application of my old DBDesigner4. It is a very interesting project where we use a lot of cutting edge technology. We use a module based runtime environment that allows users to add their own plug-ins and script everything, improved layout tools and a lot of other things people were missing most in DBDesigner4.

I got hundreds of emails over the last months about the status of this project, and many very encouraging words – a big thanks to the community for pushing for this so hard.

I was very pleased when we finally were able to release the first alpha version two weeks ago because people have been waiting for this over two years now. There is still a lot that has to be done but I am very confident that once it is finished, it will be the most powerful open source database design tool ever built.

And I would invite everybody to come to the MySQL User Conference in April next year and see my presentations on our GUI tools [Arjen note: I second that, anybody who's seen one of Mike's demos will tell you they rock!]