The MySQL Performance Blog takes a look today at a more PHP-related topic - persistent connections in PHP and whether or not they are the devil (well, okay, so maybe not quest that bad - just a little evil).

The reason behind using persistent connections is of course reducing number of connects which are rather expensive, even though they are much faster with MySQL than with most other databases.

They go on to talk about:

• issues with the number of active connections that could come up
• the use of too many connections at once
• why persistent connections are disabled in the new mysqli extension

Their conclusion? Persistent connections are not evil. In fact, they're very good, when used in the right context and for the right kinds of queries. There's also a small push for an even newer MySQL driver for PHP by the MySQL team - the "mysqlnd" driver.