Forums Feature Suggestions /mysql_support

I think you're seriously overplaying the speed benefits of having this built into mIRC. We're only talking about an interface (I hope), not an actual MySQL server being somehow embedded into mIRC so the speed benefits are negligable over a properly designed DLL. As is the convenience since you'll still need to install MySQL unless it's being hosted remotely (in which case the speed of a DLL call is a non-issue relative to a remote connection).

If there were some standard interface mIRC could implement to work with multiple SQL databases I'd agree it would be nice to have it built into mIRC. Obviously that's not possible* so for my part I don't see any reason to add support for one specific database. PostgreSQL, Interbase, Firebird, or SQLite could all be implemented with the same rationale. Of course adding them all would be crazy and that brings us back to the reason mIRC has DLL support in the first place - so that niche features can be added for those that need them without putting the burden of development and maintenance on the mIRC developers.

By the way I don't see any fight going on here. You're taking it far too personally that not everyone agrees that this should be in mIRC.

*Note: As has just been pointed out to me. mIRC could implement DBMS-agnostic support using ODBC. Perhaps this would be an appropriate way to go assuming the development overhead isn't too great.