mySQL is SQL light and non-standard. Try
PostgreSQL its at version 8.0 now and it has lots of features. If you are on windows, you must.. must.. get
pgAdmin III a GUI interface for managing PostgreSQL.
I'm going to try this ... always need to keep up on all technologies. Although I usually work in Windows, about 6 months ago I took on a short term project doing PHP & Perl on Linux using mySQL. Thanx!