I have been storing points in mysql without use of the spatial
extension. I do not forsee the need to ever store more than points,
and am wondering if the spatial extensions would offer any significant
advantages. I have looked a bit for tutorials, etc... and have not
found much.

One feature that I would like is to be able to find all points withen
X distance from of point Y, without doing a table scan. Would the
spatial index (Rtree) be able to achieve this?

Are there any good tutorials (or heaven forbid, books) that anyone can suggest?

Should I go hang out with the cool kids that are using postGIS

--
Rob Wultsch
wultsch@gmail.com
wultsch (aim)