Summary
One of the longest running and most popular open source database projects is PostgreSQL. Because of its extensibility and a community focus on stability it has stayed relevant as the ecosystem of development environments and data requirements have changed and evolved over its lifetime. It is difficult to capture any single facet of this database in a single conversation, let alone the entire surface area, but in this episode Jonathan Katz does an admirable job of it. He explains how Postgres started and how it has grown over the years, highlights the fundamental features that make it such a popular choice for application developers, and the ongoing efforts to add the complex features needed by the demanding workloads of today’s data layer. To cap it off he reviews some of the exciting features that the community is working on building into future releases.
Preamble
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- Your host is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Jonathan Katz about a high level view of PostgreSQL and the unique capabilities that it offers
Interview
- Introduction
- How did you get involved in the area of data management?
- How did you get involved in the Postgres project?
- For anyone who hasn’t used it, can you describe what PostgreSQL is?
- Where did Postgres get started and how has it evolved over the intervening years?
- What are some of the primary characteristics of Postgres that would lead someone to choose it for a given project?
- What are some cases where Postgres is the wrong choice?
- What are some of the common points of confusion for new users of PostGreSQL? (particularly if they have prior database experience)
- The recent releases of Postgres have had some fairly substantial improvements and new features. How does the community manage to balance stability and reliability against the need to add new capabilities?
- What are the aspects of Postgres that allow it to remain relevant in the current landscape of rapid evolution at the data layer?
- Are there any plans to incorporate a distributed transaction layer into the core of the project along the lines of what has been done with Citus or CockroachDB?
- What is in store for the future of Postgres?
Contact Info
Parting Question
- From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?
Links
The intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA
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