Tony (my fiancee) says it best — he’s an amazing writer. For some history, I work for a dating site that caters to gay men:
MySQL is database software. Whenever a computer program or system (like, say, a gay man’s online dating service) needs to randomly access, store, and keep track of a bunch of data “stuff” (like, say, a bunch of fruits, their personal information and, uh, “vital statistics”), it puts it into and maintains a database.
MySQL (http://www.mysql.com) is a very popular, very good database system. It’s the one Sheeri uses at her job, and my company is currently test-driving a new way to put together web sites that relies on a MySQL database.
An interesting feature of it is that it’s what’s called “open source” software. That means that the community of users is also largely the community of developers. Anyone using the software who says, “You know, I’d really like if it did this better” and figures out a way to do it can actually change the software and then tell everyone, “Hey, I did this thing to it”. Or you can just say, “Hey, I figured out how to do this other thing with it” and every learns a new thing. It’s very socialist.
So, Sheeri works with MySQL, started up and runs the Boston MySQL users group, and runs a podcast detailing and sharing her expertise and experience using MySQL. Plus, she’s actually giving a couple of workshops at this conference she’s at:
http://mysqlconf.com/cs/mysqluc2007/view/e_spkr/2731
Hence, she is a MySQL community advocate. In fact, the 2007 MySQL Community Advocate of the Year. It didn’t come with an oversized novelty check, but it’s all very computer geek sexy. It means my wife-thing is very good at what she does and people respect her intelligence and her efforts. Meanwhile, her husband-lump-thing knows how to make playing cards appear in his pockets and occasionally leaves his shoes on the bed. But he’s pretty.
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