Interview with Josh Berkus of PostgreSQL

SilentBob4 writes "The PostgreSQL database project has recently released Version 8.0, which was received with quite some fanfare, mostly due to its first-ever Windows port. Mad Penguin talked with Josh Berkus, one of the core team members, to find out how 8.0 has fared since its official release on January 17, 2005. Full interview."

Comments

Ever since I ran into unicode ... Pgsql has rocked

[Gopal.V]

Being an Indian and all that, I'm very much concerned about unicode sorting/collation kind of thing. Postgres has the best unicode support I've ever seen.

Ever since I started using transactions in pgsql, I haven't looked back to mysql land. All I now need is the Postgres-R (replication) stuff to work out of the box (like it does for mysql). I don't know if transaction speeds might be hit by replication or not.

Also great win32 installer - thank god the pgsql jdbc components aren't GPL. (it's a thin edge of the wedge to get it used for in house projects).

Re:Ever since I ran into unicode ... Pgsql has roc

[rtaylor]

All I now need is the Postgres-R (replication) stuff to work out of the box (like it does for mysql).

Look into Slony. It's an addon project, but replication for PostgreSQL will always be an addon so that it works across multiple backend versions.

It's fairly straight forward to setup a master/slave scenario, and PgAdmin is currently working on GUI tools for managing it.

Re:Ever since I ran into unicode ... Pgsql has roc

[nosferatu-man]

All I now need is the Postgres-R (replication) stuff to work out of the box (like it does for mysql).

Don't bother with Postgres-R -- use Slony. It works fantastically well.

Fatal Flaws

[Red Pointy Tail]

There are fatal flaws in this version of 8.0 that makes it practically unusable in Win32 for me.

Firstly, the broken Unicode support, which arose because certain collation functions doesn't work well on UTF-8 (PostGre uses UTF-8, Win32 prefers UCS-2). The tone you get from reading the bug/support forums are disdainful, pointing the problem to Win32 libraries and suggesting that it should not be in the confines of the PostGres team to fix Windows bugs. Nevertheless, if they already put so much effort to porting to Win32, it seems strange that they are adopting such a stance instead of proactively trying to fix that problem.

Secondly, there is no support for the Win1252 code page, which is very commonly used in English Windows, while mind-bogglingly, there seem to be all other code-pages from Cyrillic to Arabic. This makes migration of data from SQL Server very difficult, and using Latin-1 doesn't help when it encounters characters like `. Yes, Windows should be whacked on the bottom for introducing such shitty incompatibilities but that doesn't solve the problem. The other solution to this problem - to convert to UTF-8 instead - is unavailable because of first problem.

I have been trying to persuade my company to shift from SQL Server to PostGreSQL on Windows (for some reasons, we cannot move over to Linux yet). But after hitting these brick walls - I've giving up. Here's to hoping!

Re:Fatal Flaws

[Red Pointy Tail]

Read from the horse's mouth: see section 2.6. I don't know about you but I think it is a pretty big flaw if a database cannot support Unicode. Note that I meant only the Win32 port - UTF-8 works fine in other ports.

First Windows port?

[Anonymous Coward]

mostly due to its first-ever Windows port.

No, PostgreSQL has been working on Windows for years. This was just the first version where Windows was an officially supported platform.

Re:Incentive to switch

[cakoose]

It seems to me that if the PostgreSQL team had leveraged their position and spent more time developing for open operating systems, businesses would be given the incentive to switch. Instead, they've chosen to accomodate the enterprise windows crowd.

This argument made its rounds a while ago. I think it was when a prominent KDE developer write about how it was a bad idea to port applications to Windows. The counter argument is that they're letting people switch to open source software a little bit at a time (which is easier). Once people are comfortable with using cross-platform applications exclusively, the Windows platform no longer has an unfair advantage. At that point, different operating systems can be judged on their own merits, instead of simply on the availability of application software.

Kudos to Josh and the PostgreSQL team!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to use this opportunity to say this: Kudos to Josh Berkus and the entire PostgreSQL team! I hope you are reading this. You have done an absolutely amazing job with your database. It is the only Free Software RDBMS that I believe can be compared with Oracle. This is hardly the first Free Software RDBMS I used but it is the first one that actually works as it should, respecting standards and relational model with full ACID support (*cough*cough*). This is also the fastest Free Software database when you are doing any serious inserts/updates-heavy transactions on large data sets with consistency being the top priority. Kudos! You guys rule! I believe that your project should be a de facto standard in Free Software world. Keep up the good work.

Re:It sure feels like a "First Windows port"

[Red Pointy Tail]

The PostgreSQL 8.0 for windows installation process was very difficult and ultimately unsuccessful.

You got to be kidding right? There is a packaged Windows installer for 8.0.1, and as database installer goes, this got to be one of the most no-brainers around. It even installs the documentation, pgAdminIII and the necessary ODBC and OLE-DB drivers.

There is a buzz around

[WebHostingGuy]

I have seen that there seems to be a buzz around Postgresql over the last few months. More and more people are requesting Postgresql in web hosting. It seems that this is not a substitution for MS SQL but people are migrating from MySQL to Postgresql for one reason or another. Granted this is just one perspective from a web host and not scientifically significant.