Episodes

  • How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with Tom Lane

    How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with Tom Lane
    Oct 11 2024

    It was not Tom Lane’s plan to become a computer person. Tom’s plan was to be a pinball machine designer. And yet for the last 26 years Tom has been one of the most prolific engineering contributors to Postgres. In this episode of Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano, PostgreSQL luminary Tom Lane walks us through how he got his start as a developer and in Postgres—including his time working on desktop calculators at HP. And how he has code running on Mars (and most of us don’t.) During Tom’s PhD studies at Carnegie Mellon, nobody told him databases were so interesting! It wasn’t until Tom needed a database to store stock trading information that he first got to work with Postgres. And that’s when Tom’s 26-year-long (and counting) Postgres story began.

    Links mentioned in this episode:

    • Wikipedia: Tom Lane (computer scientist)
    • Wikipedia: HP 9800 series
    • CMU CS Department Coke Machine history
    • Wikipedia: Honeywell 316
    • Wikipedia: Teletype Model 33
    • Wikipedia: Hydra (operating system)
    • Wikipedia: William Wulf
    • Wikipedia: Jon Bentley (computer scientist)
    • Wikipedia: Mary Shaw (computer scientist)
    • Wikipedia: Usenet
    • GitHub: postgres commit by tglsfdc
    • Article: The Mars 2020 Engineering Cameras and Microphone on the Perseverance Rover: A Next-Generation Imaging System for Mars Exploration by J.N. Maki et al.
    • Blog: Open Source on Mars: Community powers NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter by Klint Finley
    • PostgreSQL Mailing List message: pg_upgrade --check fails to warn about abstime
    • PostgreSQL: Core Team
    • postgresql.git: commitdiff
    • Blog: Proton to Fastmail by Tristan Partin
    • Talking Postgres Ep18: How I got started as a dev (& in Postgres) with David Rowley
    • PGConf EU 2024: Conference Schedule
    • PGConf NYC 2024: Conference Schedule
    • Talking Postgres Ep19: Becoming a Postgres committer with Melanie Plageman
    • PostgreSQL: Commitfests
    • Wikipedia: Cutting room floor
    • PostgreSQL Mailing List message: Straight-from-the-horses-mouth dept
    • PostgreSQL Mailing List message: [PATCH] Extend ALTER OPERATOR to support adding commutator, negator, hashes, and merges
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 39 mins
  • Becoming a Postgres committer with Melanie Plageman

    Becoming a Postgres committer with Melanie Plageman
    Sep 20 2024
    If you could work on anything, would you quit your job to pursue it? Postgres committer and major contributor Melanie Plageman joined Claire Giordano on this episode of the Talking Postgres podcast (formerly Path To Citus Con) to share her story about becoming a Postgres committer. Melanie pivoted from IT consulting to open-source development, driven by her fascination with systems engineering and Postgres open source. What’s the secret to getting your patch committed? Feedback is a gift, but how willing are you to embrace it? How important is mentorship—and how important is it to ask for help? Even though crafting clear, concise emails to a technical community might not be easy, Melanie shows how empathy for other Postgres developers can help your work to stand out.Links discussed in this episodePgsql-hackers mailing list: Announcement about new Postgres committersConference: PGConf.dev 2025Blog: Talk, then code by Dave ChenyBlog posts about mentoring by Robert HaasBlog: Mentoring Program Updates by Robert HaasX: Brendan Burn’s tweet about the Kubernetes Chop Wood and Carry Water awardAward: Chop Wood Carry WaterBlog: Who Contributed to PostgreSQL Development in 2023? by Robert HaasAbstract: What's in a Postgres major release? An analysis of contributions in the v17 timeframe for PGConfEU 2024 by Claire GiordanoTalking Postgres Ep18: How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with David RowleyWikipedia: PostgreSQL Contributor GiftsCal invite for next Ep 20 of Talking Postgres with Tom Lane to be recorded LIVE on Wed Oct 9, 2024Podcasts & conference videos that Melanie listens to when running that she recommends to Postgres developers:Podcast: Oxide and FriendsPodcast: postgres.fmPodcast: Software Engineering RadioPodcast: Talking Postgres with Claire GiordanoPodcast: Two’s ComplementSE Radio: Ep 432: Brian D Foy on Perl 7Video: Memory & Caches by Matt GodboltVideos: POSETTE 2024 playlistVideo: RailsConf 2014 - All the Little Things by Sandi MetzYouTube: Brandon FoltzYouTube: CMU Database GroupYouTube: Kernel RecipesYouTube: Linux Plumbers ConferenceYouTube: Matt GodboltYouTube: Onur Mutlu LecturesYouTube: pganalyzeYouTube: PostgreSQL Development ConferenceYouTube: SNIAVideoYouTube: Strange Loop ConferenceYouTube: The Linux Foundation
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 23 mins
  • How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with David Rowley

    How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with David Rowley
    Aug 9 2024

    Ever wonder how driving a forklift at a cheese factory could lead to a career in databases? Postgres committer David Rowley joined Claire Giordano on this episode of the Talking Postgres podcast (formerly Path To Citus Con) to share his story about how he got started as a developer and in Postgres. Could an unexpected job lead to your dream career? Does speeding things up give you a buzz? How could an idea from a hike become a Postgres patch? And what is the importance of doing the research before you submit a proposal to the Postgres mailing list? Also discussed: resources available to start your Postgres journey such as books, blogs, videos, and the pgsql-hackers mailing list.

    Links mentioned in this episode:

    • Wikipedia: Acorn Computers
    • PostgreSQL Mailing List Archives: David’s first email: Possible problem with EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM TIMESTAMP)
    • Google Usenet: Larry Page’s Java question from Jan 7, 1996
    • Blog: Speeding up sort performance in Postgres 15 by David Rowley
    • Blog: What’s new in the Postgres 16 query planner / optimizer by David Rowley
    • Book: The Art of PostgreSQL by Dimitri Fontaine
    • Book: The Art of SQL by Stéphane Faroult, Peter Robson
    • Book: The Art of Writing Efficient Programs: An advanced programmer's guide to efficient hardware utilization and compiler optimizations using C++ examples by Fedor G. Pikus
    • X: Simon Willison’s tweet
    • Blog by Tony Finch
    • Book: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
    • GitHub Issue: Coughing in my microphone causes segfault
    • PostgreSQL Mailing Lists: Overview
    • PostgreSQL Mailing Lists: pgsql-general
    • PostgreSQL Mailing Lists: pgsql-hackers
    • Video: Making your patch more committable by Melanie Plageman at PGConf.EU 2023
    • Cheese company: Seriously Cheddar
    • Talking Postgres Ep04: How I got started as a dev and in Postgres with Melanie Plageman & Thomas Munro
    • Talking Postgres Ep08: How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with Andres Freund & Heikki Linnakangas
    • Cal invite for next Ep19 of Talking Postgres with Melanie Plageman
    • Cal invite for next Ep 20 of Talking Postgres with Tom Lane
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 29 mins
  • Podcasting about Postgres with Pino de Candia

    Podcasting about Postgres with Pino de Candia
    Jul 12 2024
    Have you ever eavesdropped on other people’s conversations? Former co-host Pino de Candia joins Claire Giordano on this episode of Talking Postgres (formerly Path To Citus Con) to share their experience on podcasting about Postgres. Is listening to a podcast the next best thing to being in the hallway track at a conference? Does it bring the community together? How beneficial has it been to have a parallel chat while recording live? What is the “sweet spot” for the number of guests to have per episode? Is structure important for a podcast? Also discussed: this podcast’s rename, a walk down memory lane reflecting on the past 16 episodes, and shout-outs to other podcasts about Postgres.Links mentioned in this episode:Cal invite for next Ep18 of Talking Postgres with David RowleyPodcast: Talking Postgres Talking Postgres Ep01: Working in public on open source with Simon Willison & Marco SlotEp02: How to get Postgres ready for the next 100 million usersEp03: Why giving talks at Postgres conferences matterswith Álvaro Herrera and Boriss MejíasVideo: Postgres Storytelling: What’s going on with Synchronous Replication | POSETTE 2024 by Boriss MejíasVideo: Postgres Storytelling: Support in the Darkest Hour | Citus Con 2023, by Boriss MejíasEp04: How I got started as a dev and in Postgres with Melanie Plageman & Thomas MunroEp05: My favorite ways to learn more about PostgreSQL with Grant Fritchey & Ryan BoozVideo: Fibonacci Spirals and Ways to Contribute to Postgres—Beyond Code | Citus Con 2022, by Claire GiordanoEp06: You're probably already using Postgres with Chelsea Dole & Floor DreesWikipedia: Object–relational mappingVideo: How to work with other people | POSETTE 2024, by Floor Drees and Jimmy AngelakosEp07: Why people care about PostGIS and Postgres with Paul Ramsey & Regina ObeEp08: How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with Andres Freund & Heikki LinnakangasSatya Nadella’s LinkedIn post about Andres Freund’s xz backdoor discoveryEp09: Solving every data problem in SQL with Dimitri Fontaine & Vik FearingWikipedia: Advent of CodeEp10: My Journey into Postgres Monitoring with Lukas Fittl & Rob TreatEp11: My Journey into Performance Benchmarking with Jelte Fennema-Nio & Marco SlotEp12: From developer to PostgreSQL specialist with Derk van VeenEp13: Spinning up on Postgres & AI with Arda AytekinEp14: Becoming expert at using PostgreSQL with Chris EllisVideo: Electric Elephants | pgDay Paris 2024, by Chris EllisEp15: My Journey to Explaining Explain with Michael ChristofidesPodcast: Postgres FMEp16: The Making of POSETTE: An Event for Postgres with Teresa Giacomini & Aaron WislangPodcast: Scaling PostgreSQLPodcast: Postgres FM Ep99 with guest Claire Giordano: Sponsoring the communityPodcast: Hacking PostgresPlaylist: 5mins of Postgres
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 24 mins
  • The Making of POSETTE: An Event for Postgres with Teresa Giacomini & Aaron Wislang

    The Making of POSETTE: An Event for Postgres with Teresa Giacomini & Aaron Wislang
    Jun 21 2024
    It’s not a conference unless you can confer, right? POSETTE organizers Teresa Giacomini and Aaron Wislang join Claire Giordano on the Path To Citus Con* podcast to share backstage perspectives on the making of POSETTE: An Event for Postgres. How do you feel about captions: love or hate? Should livestream talks be pre-recorded or presented live? Why rename from Citus Con to POSETTE? Where did the inspiration for POSETTE come from? And can the hallway track at a conference actually be fun—if it is virtual? Also discussed: Avett Brothers lyrics, the surprising number of POSETTE speakers with chickens, and the existential question of whether the work in organizing a conference is worth it.*[Update: July 2024] Path To Citus Con has been renamed to Talking Postgres. All of the past podcast episodes from Path To Citus Con—now called Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano—can be found here: https://talkingpostgres.comLinks mentioned in this episode: Blog post: What’s in a name? About the naming of POSETTE: An Event for PostgresFOSDEM: the conference whose name inspired the POSETTE namePlaylist of all 42 talks from POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2024Playlist of the 4 unique livestreams from POSETTE 2024 CFP is open: PGDay Lowlands 2024 Call for Papers will close July 9, 2024Virtual conference that POSETTE organizers were inspired by: P99 ConfDiscord: Microsoft Open Source Discord, Home for virtual hallway track for #posetteconfAdam Wølk’s speaker page for POSETTESpeaker interview with Polina Bungina at POSETTEBlog post: About Talk Selection for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2024, by Claire GiordanoBlog post: Building the PGConf.dev Programme, by Paul RamseypgDay Paris 2024 note about talk selection processKeynote: All The Postgres Things at Microsoft, POSETTE edition, by Charles FeddersenKeynote: The Open Source Geospatial Community, PostGIS, & Postgres, by Regina ObeKeynote: Why I love open source development & what I learned from K8s, by Sarah NovotnyKeynote: A Walking Tour of PostgreSQL, by Thomas MunroLyrics from The Perfect Space by The Avett BrothersVideo: Lessons Learned benchmarking & profiling distributed PostgreSQL, by Lotte FeliusVideo: Postgres Storytelling: Support in the Darkest Hour | Citus Con 2023, by Boriss Mejías Video: Postgres Storytelling: What's going on with Synchronous Replication?, by Boriss MejíasVideo: Vindicating ZFS with PostgreSQL: Unleashing the Power of Scalability, includes a bit of jazz music by Federico CampoliBlog post: Ultimate Guide to POSETTE: An Event for Postgres, 2024 editionSocial post: Tweet by Kelsey Hightower with advice to conference organizersVideo from PGConfEU 2023: So you want a PGDay in your city, by Henrietta Dombrovskaya & Teresa GiacominiBlog post: The Story Behind the Activity Book for Postgres, by Teresa Giacomini
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 35 mins
  • My Journey to Explaining Explain with Michael Christofides

    My Journey to Explaining Explain with Michael Christofides
    May 3 2024

    Did you know that sometimes the fastest way of doing something is not having to do it at all? In this episode of Path To Citus Con*, the podcast for developers who love Postgres, Michael Christofides joins Claire Giordano to chat about his journey to explaining explain (or should we say EXPLAIN!?) Michael shared his origin story as a mathematician and his first experience with Postgres before walking us through co-founding a Postgres company and now co-hosting a podcast. Like many in the Postgres community, he is opinionated in the best way possible! We even learned about his passion for BUFFERS and why he believes everyone should use them. This session also dives into Michael’s belief in the importance of Postgres documentation. Because great documentation can be worth its weight in Gold, especially when the going gets tough.

    *[Update: July 2024] Path To Citus Con has been renamed to Talking Postgres. All of the past podcast episodes from Path To Citus Con—now called Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano—can be found here: https://talkingpostgres.com

    Links mentioned in this episode:

    • Schedule for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres 2024
    • Michael Christofides' company, pgMustard
    • Blog: Where our name came from by Michael Christofides
    • Wiki: Using EXPLAIN
    • X: Nikolay Samokhvalov
    • Video: Lightning Talks at pgDay Paris 2024
    • Blog: What’s new with Postgres at Microsoft (August 2023) by Claire Giordano
    • Blog: Faster PostgreSQL Counting by Joe Nelson
    • GitHub: pg_docs_bot (browser extension)
    • GitHub Docs: About GitHub Copilot Chat
    • Documentation: Using EXPLAIN
    • Glossary: EXPLAIN Glossary by Michael Christofides
    • Video: EXPLAIN Explained by Josh Berkus
    • Blog: Reading a Postgres EXPLAIN ANALYZE Query Plan by Caleb Hearth
    • Blog: Explaining the unexplainable by Depesz
    • PostgreSQL execution plan visualizer, explain.dalibo.com
    • Blog: Planet PostgreSQL
    • News: Postgres Weekly
    • Playlist: 5mins of Postgres
    • Podcast: Postgres FM podcast
    • Cal invite for next Ep16 of Path To Citus Con podcast with Aaron Wislang & Teresa Giacomini
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 26 mins
  • Becoming expert at using PostgreSQL with Chris Ellis

    Becoming expert at using PostgreSQL with Chris Ellis
    Apr 5 2024
    You have to find what works for you and Chris Ellis has never been the kind of person that could go and sit in a library—for Chris, the most productive Postgres place is in a coffee shop. In this episode of the Path To Citus Con* podcast for developers who love Postgres, Chris Ellis joined Claire and Pino to chat about his path to becoming more (and more) expert at using PostgreSQL. Curiosity may have killed the cat but it’s taken Chris places, beginning as a 5 year old playing with QBASIC. Chris shared his journey to becoming a developer, an electronic engineer, a builder, and a PostgreSQL user. This session also delves into Chris’s work as a Postgres conference speaker (and organizer!) Importantly, we spent time remembering Simon Riggs, Postgres leader extraordinaire. RIP.*[Update: July 2024] Path To Citus Con has been renamed to Talking Postgres. All of the past podcast episodes from Path To Citus Con—now called Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano—can be found here: https://talkingpostgres.comLinks mentioned in this episode:Chris's first thread on the PostgreSQL mailing listsSlides: IoT with PostgreSQL—by Chris Ellis at PGConf.EU 2023Slides: Advantage PostgreSQL—by Chris Ellis at Nordic PGDay 2024 Video: Should I use JSON in PostgreSQL?—by Boriss Mejías at PGConf.EU 2023 Slides: Fighting the Butterflies & giving your first Postgres conference talk—by Claire Giordano at pgDay Paris 2024 Markus Winand's website, Modern SQLWikipedia: Linus’s lawAndres Freund’s xz backdoor discoveryAndres Freund’s Mastodon Toot about xz backdoorPodcast: Path to Citus Con Ep08: How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with Andres Freund & Heikki LinnakangasPodcast: Path To Citus Con Ep11: My Journey into Performance Benchmarking with Jelte Fennema-Nio & Marco SlotPodcast: Oxide and Friends next episode on Mon Apr 08 2024, featuring Andres Freund from MicrosoftJessie Frazelle tweet on LLMVideo of pgDay Paris 2024 lightning talks, including Chris's "Electric Elephants" talkPost about Simon Riggs's tragic passing last week. He will be missed, he is missed, and many are heartbroken Simon Riggs: The Next 20 Years—keynote at PGConf.EU 2023Book: The Art of PostgreSQL by Dimitri FontainePodcast: Path To Citus Con Ep09: Solving every data problem in SQL w/Dimitri Fontaine & Vik FearingBlog: Planet PostgreSQLBlog: Contributing to Postgres 101: A Beginner's Experience by Elizabeth Christensen Book: Linux Kernel Development by Robert Love Chris Ellis’s LED PCB ArtBlog: pgDay Paris – Postgres Community, cheese and wine by Boriss MejíasPodcast: LUG RadioCFP for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres (free & virtual event) open until Sunday April 7th 2024 at 11:59pm PDTCal invite for next Ep15 of Path To Citus Con podcast with Michael Christofides
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Spinning up on Postgres & AI with Arda Aytekin

    Spinning up on Postgres & AI with Arda Aytekin
    Mar 8 2024
    Everywhere you look, people are talking about AI. From Copilot to ChatGPT to Postgres’s powerful AI capabilities (think: pgvector), AI is everywhere. In this episode of Path To Citus Con*, for developers who love Postgres, Arda Aytekin joined Claire and Pino to chat about spinning up on Postgres and AI. Arda shared his origin story in mechanical engineering and data science before walking us through vector databases, pgvector, and azure_ai. Arda is one of the creators of the azure_ai extension, so the conversation delves into the azure_ai integration between Azure Database for PostgreSQL and Azure AI Services. Also discussed (of course) was—Responsible AI.*[Update: July 2024] Path To Citus Con has been renamed to Talking Postgres. All of the past podcast episodes from Path To Citus Con—now called Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano—can be found here: https://talkingpostgres.comLinks mentioned in this episode:pgvector on GitHub: https://github.com/pgvector/pgvectorAndrew Kane: https://github.com/ankaneSimon Willison’s Blog: https://simonwillison.net/Demo of Azure AI & pgvector with Azure Database for PostgreSQL by Claire Giordano: https://youtu.be/em0PKDGzzlQ?si=TrOQHXO5gqIuGsU0Blog: Introducing the azure_ai extension to Azure Database for PostgreSQL by Denzil Ribeiro: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-database-for-postgresql/introducing-the-azure-ai-extension-to-azure-database-for/ba-p/3980291Documentation: Azure Database for PostgreSQL - Flexible Server Azure AI Extension: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/postgresql/flexible-server/generative-ai-azure-overviewBlog: Vectors are the new JSON in PostgreSQL by Jonathan Katz: https://jkatz05.com/post/postgres/vectors-json-postgresql/Responsible AI at Microsoft: https://aka.ms/raiAndreessen's Corollary: Ethical Dilemmas in Software Engineering by Bryan Cantrill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wtvQZijPzgBlog: Phi-2: The surprising power of small language models by Mojan Javaheripi & Sébastien Bubeck: https://www.microsoft.com/research/blog/phi-2-the-surprising-power-of-small-language-models/pg_vectorize: https://github.com/tembo-io/pg_vectorizeOpenAI API documentation: https://platform.openai.com/docs/introductionMicrosoft Azure AI Fundamentals: Generative AI - Training: https://learn.microsoft.com/training/paths/introduction-generative-ai/ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers: https://www.deeplearning.ai/short-courses/chatgpt-prompt-engineering-for-developers/Andrej Karpathy's keynote @ Microsoft Build 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZQun8Y4L2AStanford University CS231n: Deep Learning for Computer Vision: http://cs231n.stanford.edu/LangChain: https://www.langchain.com/Towards Data Science: https://towardsdatascience.com/Generative AI for Beginners on GitHub: https://github.com/microsoft/generative-ai-for-beginners/Zero-shot learning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-shot_learningAndrej Karpathy thread on LLMs: https://www.threads.net/@karpathy/post/C3lBSlov1QJ/Podcast: Path to Citus Con Ep01: Working in public on open source with Simon Willison & Marco Slot: https://talkingpostgres.com/episodes/working-in-public-on-open-sourceThe Art of PostgreSQL by Dimitri Fontaine, get 15% OFF with CLAIRE15: https://theartofpostgresql.com/Podcast: Path to Citus Con Ep08: Solving every data problem in SQL w/Dimitri Fontaine & Vik Fearing: https://talkingpostgres.com/episodes/solving-every-data-problem-in-sql-w-dimitri-fontaine-vik-fearing)Arda Aytekin’s scheduled talk at PGDay Chicago 2024 on April 26: https://postgresql.us/events/pgdaychicago2024/schedule/session/1542-learnings-from-extension-development-in-rust-pgrx/ CFP for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres (free & virtual event) open until April 7th 2024: https://aka.ms/posette-cfp-2024
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 19 mins