MySQL Considered Harmful

If you are serious about database, keep your hand out of MySQL - the World's worst RDBMS.

Despite of its high popularity, it is a database software that doesn't even meet the basic requirement of RDBMS - Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (ACID). It lacks of many things that you expected in a real (O)RDBMS package:

• Referential constraints, unless using InnoDB.
• Views.
• Transactions, unless using InnoDB.
• Unicode support.
• Stored procedures and triggers.

See more about this in Why not to use MySQL. P.S. If you are looking for a real open-source RDBMS, try PostgreSQL or Firebird.