What's new in MySQL Globalization/Internationalization

This session is led by the developer lead for “MySQL globalization team” at Sun. We’ll talk what we’ve created and/or fixed for the next Generally Available MySQL version, what many Asian and European users have screamed for: A modern ISO latin9 character set with Euro Sign in the right place, Variations of Japanese character sets with special characters, Supplementary character sets, also known as the 4-byte UTF8 project (vital for some changes in Chinese and Japanese standards), Korean letters, Improvements in Unicode collations (vital for German and South European languages), Localization based on operating system (don’t bother about character set settings on the client side anymore!), and user-defined error messages with any language choice on the fly! I’ll explain the effects, reveal the shocking truth about The Great VARBINARY Fiasco, and predict what will happen with the next project that involves me: cleaning up the way we handle identifiers (at bloody last).