Database Packages

There are many database packages on the market now; some are free, and some require commercial licenses. In this book, we will focus on MySQL, which is free for non-commercial use. So basically, if you make money from the direct application of a MySQL database, you have to share the fruits of your success, which in our opinion is fair. Of course, this all depends on terms and conditions (you can find information regarding this at http://www.mysql.com).

So what are the differences between database packages then? Some are faster and some have extensions and additional script languages, but on the whole, they are very similar to one another. The main reasoning for this is that they all use the same language to access and input data, the Structured Query Language (SQL).

On the whole, it does not really matter which database package you select to start off with because, as you will see later, it is easy to use most of the popular database packages by simply changing the package that you are using within your Java code. However, different database packages can have different syntax requirements, so it's not always that easy.