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Pretty soon, all the mysql_ functions that we have been using in PHP scripts could go the way of the dinosaur. Well, not literally, because there are still some PHP scripts out there that are dependent on PHP 4 so some web hosting providers still provide PHP 4 hosting. Also, we hardly have anyone running PHP 5.5 so it could be at least a few months before we are going to have to worry about getting all of our scripts updated.Now that the mysql_ functions are deprecated, what next? MySQLi and PDO_MySQL are the answer. MySQLi provides some pretty nifty features, such as being able to send multiple SQL statements to the server in one go, thus reducing the overhead of going back and forth for the execution of SQL statements, which was associated with the older MySQL API. PDO has the advantage of being able to write database-independent code, assuming that the SQL statements themselves were written with portability in mind. Both APIs are the future for PHP web developers, so what better a time to start learning than right now?