Adieu MySQL 5.6!
When you arrived in 2013 you had a lot of cool new features. There was the NoSQL Memchache plug-in that was blazingly fast, an improved Performance Shema, full texted searching for InnoDB, big improvements in the optimizer, and great enhancements to replication. You were a great replacement for 5.5!
But in a few days you become history, a museum piece. No more updates for big fixes for you. You will become part of the 'back in the old MySQL 5.6' days stories senior DBAs and developers will tell. You were a big improvement over 5.5 and a stepping stone to 5.7 & 8.0.
You arrived with the mysql_config_editor, started the SHA256 password options, and you let us do some table alterations online.
But now you time is passed and the MySQL Community Moves onward. A lot of us old timers will hear your echoes in MySQL 8 and the newer users will not know what you brought to us.
Bye bye 5.6. Rest well knowing you did your part.
