Why PostgreSQL? Why This Database? Why Now? | Swiss PGDay 2019 | Claire Giordano

Abstract from PostgreSQL talk delivered at Swiss PGDay in Rapperswil, Switzerland in June of 2019:

I spent the early part of my career working on developer tools, operating systems, high-speed file systems, and scale-out storage. Not databases. Frankly, I always thought that databases were a bit boring. So almost 2 years in to my new job at a Postgres company, I continue to be amazed at the enthusiasm of the PostgreSQL developer community and users. I mean, people’s eyes light up when you ask them why they love Postgres. Sure, a lot of us get animated when talking about our newest gadget, or Ronaldo’s phenomenal free-kick goal in the World Cup, or mint chip gelato from La Strega Nocciola—but most platform software simply doesn’t trigger this kind of passion. So why does Postgres? Why is this open source database having such a “moment”? Well, I’ve been trying to understand, looking at this “Postgres moment” from a few different angles. In this talk I’ll share what I’ve observed to be the top 10 business, technology, and community reasons so many of you have so much affection for PostgreSQL.

Transcript

1. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
   Why PostgreSQL
   Why This Database
   Why Now
   Claire Giordano, Citus Data / Microsoft
   @clairegiordano / @citusdata / @microsoft
   Now Part of Microsoft
   Swiss PGDay | Jun 2019 | Rapperswil
   

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2. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
   Preferred programming language
   Hi, I’m Claire—and I’m a
   Principal PM Manager
   at Microsoft, by way of the
   recent Citus Data
   acquisition, where I was
   VP of Marketing.
   @clairegiordano @citusdata @microsoft
   Citus Data > Microsoft
   Engineering > Product > Marketing
   Athens > Nantes
   

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3. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
   

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   4
   @clairegiordano
   

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   5
   Peop
   le’s
   eyes
   ligh
   t up
   @clairegiordano
   

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   6
   

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   7
   Peter Eisentraut
   

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   8
   Dimitri Fontaine at PGConfEU 2018.
   Photo by Claire Giordano.
   Peter Eisentraut at PGConfEU 2018.
   Photo by Claire Giordano.
   Lætitia Avrot at PGConfEU 2018.
   Photo by Claire Giordano.
   Stephen Frost at PGConfEU 2018.
   Photo by Claire Giordano.
   

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9. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
   Why PostgreSQL?
   Why This Database?
   Why Now?
   ?
   @clairegiordano
   

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10. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    people have so much affection for PostgreSQL
    10 reasons
    @clairegiordano
    

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11. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Open Source
    1
    @clairegiordano
    0
    Octocat icon courtesy of GitHub
    

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12. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Why does it matter that Postgres is open source?
    How does the “open source-ness” of Postgres
    contribute to the growing popularity of Postgres?
    Because Postgres is free. As in freedom.
    

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13. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Easy for developers to kick the tires.
    

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14. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Able to avoid vendor lock-in.
    

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15. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    ECOSYSTEM
    Open source aspect of Postgres contributes to
    the thriving ecosystem of expertise, tooling,
    integrations.
    

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16. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Don’t have to reinvent the wheel
    Onager-drawn cart in Sumeria c. 2500 BC. Public domain.
    

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17. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Transparency of open source.
    

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18. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Open source means Postgres is not a black box.
    

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19. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    It’s not open source,
    it’s open engineering.”
    possibly Simon Riggs,
    2nd Quadrant
    “
    

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20. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    

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21. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Come for the code. Stay for the community.
    

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22. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Community
    9
    @clairegiordano Photo courtesy of @pgconfeu, Oct 2018 Lisbon
    

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    25
    

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    Source: https://www.pgcon.org/2016/schedule/events/890.en.html
    

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    27
    @clairegiordano
    Not Oracle
    8
    

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    Source: Manu Cornet. Bonkers World. http://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts
    

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    7
    @clairegiordano
    Permissive
    license
    

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    30
    

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31. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Forks make the community
    strong.”
    —Peter van Hardenberg,
    Illustrated History of Postgres
    “
    

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    https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_derived_databases
    

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    6
    Trust
    Hardened
    Data Integrity
    Maintainability
    @clairegiordano
    

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    @clairegiordano
    

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    5
    Heroku helped to
    popularize
    Postgres
    @clairegiordano
    

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36. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    4NoSQL
    did
    not eat
    the
    world
    @clairegiordano
    

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37. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    37
    Postgres is heating up
    Source: Hacker News Hiring Trends through March 2019 | hntrends.com
    Postgres
    MySQL
    MongoDB
    

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38. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    @clairegiordano
    3
    Timing of JSON &
    JSONB
    support
    

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39. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    2
    @clairegiordano
    CREATE EXTENSION postgis;
    PostGIS
    Photo by Claire Giordano
    

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40. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    40
    PostGIS is the
    industry
    standard way
    to model spatial
    data in a
    database
    PostGIS graphic courtesy of www.postgis.net
    

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41. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    41
    PostGIS
    matters
    because
    location is the
    universal
    foreign key”
    PostGIS graphic courtesy of www.postgis.net
    “
    —Paul Ramsey
    

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    Visualizing patterns & relations by
    geographic properties is a powerful thing.
    

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    43
    

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44. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Everything is related to
    everything else, but near things
    are more related than distant
    things.”
    —Waldo Tobler, American-Swiss geographer
    & cartographer
    “
    

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45. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    And now……….. #1 reason
    

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    1
    Extension APIs
    @clairegiordano
    

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47. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    We are still dining out on the
    radical design decision by Michael
    Stonebraker in the Design of
    Postgres—to have
    run-time extensions.”
    —Paul Ramsey, Lisbon, PGConfEU 2018
    “
    

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48. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Michael
    Stonebraker
    Source: Wikipedia
    

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    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    51
    Not everyone has to agree, up-front
    

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52. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    PostGIS
    Citus
    postgresql-HLL
    pg_partman
    pg_cron
    postgresql-topn
    postgresql-unit
    pguri
    postgis.net/
    citusdata/citus
    citusdata/postgresql-hll
    pgpartman/pg_partman
    petere/pguri
    citusdata/pg_cron
    ChristophBerg/postgresql-unit
    citusdata/postgresql-topn
    

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53. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    PostGIS
    Citus
    postgresql-HLL
    pg_partman
    pg_cron
    postgresql-topn
    postgresql-unit
    pguri
    postgis.net/
    citusdata/citus
    citusdata/postgresql-hll
    pgpartman/pg_partman
    petere/pguri
    citusdata/pg_cron
    ChristophBerg/postgresql-unit
    citusdata/postgresql-topn
    AND SO MANY MORE
    POSTGRES EXTENSIONS
    AND MORE THAT WE HAVEN’T YET IMAGINED
    

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54. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    It’s deeply satisfying to
    work on a technology
    (PostgreSQL!) that not
    only delights developers,
    but makes their lives light
    years better.”
    “
    —Claire Giordano,
    Nordic PGDay 2019
    @clairegiordano
    

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55. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Matt Asay
    Lætitia Avrot
    Dave Cramer
    Herb Cunitz
    Nils Dijk
    Peter Eisentraut
    Vik Fearing
    Dimitri Fontaine
    Stephen Frost
    Önder Kalaci
    Amit Kapila
    Günce Kaya
    Craig Kerstiens
    Paul Ramsey
    Marco Slot
    Sai Srirampur
    My Nguyen
    Peter van Hardenberg
    Tom Lane
    Jonathan Katz
    PGConfEU audience
    Isaac Alves
    Danese Cooper
    Devrim Gündüz
    Jeff Davis
    Samay Sharma
    PGConf.EU Conference committee
    Nordic PGDay conference committee
    Swiss PGDay conference committee
    Thank You!
    

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56. Swiss PGDay 2019 | Rapperswil, Switzerland
    Thank
    @ clairegiordano
    @ citusdata
    @ microsoft
    @ azureDBpostgres
    github.com/citusdata/citus
    you!
    p.s. Socks
    &stickers
    Now Part of Microsoft
    

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