MySQL application example

[qwweeeit at yahoo.it]

Hi all,
I have in mind to learn to use MySQL, not only to use it myself but
also to persuade a friend of mine to use Python and MySQL and abandon
Informix and its old fashioned language (and also SCO UNIX to migrate
to Linux).
Apart reading tutorials, I have found that the best thing to learn a
complex argument is to examine and study a big "working" application
(in the case of MySQL with, possibly, the relevant databases already
filled with data).
Can you direct me to such an application (the field is not very
important: could be astronautical data, ecological data, business data
etc ...)
DBMS has such vast fields of applications...
I have already some experience on databases, but not as serious as the
relational DBMS MySQL.

Bye.

P.S. To give you an idea of my goals:
- my wife wants a recipes' db, obtained by scanning (and OCR) her
cook's school documents (and photo's)
- with my friend I want to convert in Python his Informix program to
manage a small business activity