Postgres: Four Decades of Open-Source Extensible Dominance

Resources

Resources & Recommendations

Books

• "The Design of Postgress" by Michael Stonebraker and Lawrence Rowe - This foundational design document, authored around 1986, is mentioned as a key early vision for Postgress, highlighting its extensibility as a core objective.

Videos & Documentaries

• Video skit on Postgress pronunciation (Claire Giordano) - Claire Giordano mentions creating a short video skit to humorously address the various ways people pronounce and spell "Postgres."

Research & Studies

• "The Design of Postgress" (Michael Stonebraker and Lawrence Rowe, ~1986) - This is the original design document for Postgress, outlining its objectives including extensibility.

Tools & Software

• Tuple (tuple app) - A remote pair programming application that Scott Hanselman compares to the experience of in-person pair programming.
• Postman - Mentioned as a platform for building and orchestrating APIs, particularly for AI agents.
• Postman Flows - A feature within Postman that allows for visual orchestration of APIs, logic, and data to build agents.
• Git - The version control system used for managing the Postgress source code.
• Docker - A platform for containerization, with Docker images of Postgress being mentioned.
• Raspberry Pi - A small, affordable computer mentioned as a platform where Postgress can be installed and run.

Articles & Papers

• Email from Tom Lane on Postgress name (~2006-2007) - A famous email from a key Postgress contributor discussing the challenges and mispronunciations associated with the project's name.

People Mentioned

• Michael Stonebraker - Co-author of "The Design of Postgress" and a key figure in its early development, also associated with the Ingres database.
• Lawrence Rowe - Co-author of "The Design of Postgress."
• Mikey - Claire Giordano's coworker, an expert on macOS and Objective C, mentioned in the context of pair programming.
• Tom Lane - A prominent Postgress contributor, committer, and engineer, known for an email discussing the project's name.
• Andres Freund - A committer and partner engineer at Microsoft who works on the Postgress open-source project, discussed his work on asynchronous I/O support.
• Daniel Gustavson - A committer who worked with Claire Giordano on a talk about contributions to Postgress 18.
• Andrew Dunston - A committer who is a key figure associated with the Postgress build farm.
• Christoph Berg - An engineer who focuses on Debian packaging for Postgress.
• Devrim Gunduz - An engineer who focuses on RPM packaging for Postgress.

Organizations & Institutions

• Microsoft - The company where Claire Giordano works, a significant contributor to the Postgress open-source project.
• Citus - A San Francisco-based startup that developed an open-source extension for Postgress, which was later acquired by Microsoft.
• Amazon (AWS) - Mentioned as a company that contributes to Postgress and offers managed services like RDS Postgress.
• Google - Mentioned as a company that has individuals contributing to the Postgress project.
• Heroku - Mentioned as an early adopter and commercializer of managed Postgress services.
• Azure - Microsoft's cloud computing service, offering a managed Postgress database service.
• Postgresql Community Association (PGCA) - An entity that shepherds the trademarks for Postgress.
• Canova - A commercial sponsor providing servers for the Postgress project.
• Rackspace - A commercial sponsor providing servers for the Postgress project.

Courses & Educational Resources

• Postgress Mail Lists - A platform where significant collaboration and decision-making for the Postgress project occurs.
• Postgress Hackers Discord - A Discord server created to support a mentoring program for upcoming Postgress contributors.

Websites & Online Resources

• tuple app (tuple.app) - The website for the remote pair programming tool Tuple.
• Postman API Network (100,000+ APIs) - A network of APIs available on Postman.
• Postman.com/hanselminutes - A URL provided for listeners to learn more about Postman.
• Postgresql.org - The official website for the Postgress open-source project, providing information on releases, community, and conferences.

Other Resources

• Postgresql License - Described as similar to MIT or BSD, a permissive license allowing for broad use and modification.
• Slonik - The elephant logo/icon that visually represents Postgress.
• Postgress Build Farm - A collection of servers used to build variations of the Postgress releases, with individual servers named after animals.