[HN Gopher] Looking Back at Postgres
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Looking Back at Postgres
Author : craigkerstiens
Score : 180 points
Date : 2020-06-15 17:16 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
| felixge wrote:
| I love PostgreSQL history, so this was tons of fun to read me for
| me.
|
| While reading, I also ended up highlighting and sharing some of
| my favorite parts on twitter:
| https://twitter.com/felixge/status/1272613965219139585
| danielovichdk wrote:
| I find Postgres a really good database but with really poor
| tools.
|
| I don't want to stir up a religious battle here, but the tooling
| around MSSQL is just that much better.
|
| And the sql dialect is imo more to my taste.
| kiwicopple wrote:
| I also found this when I switched from MySQL. After a while you
| discover the right tool for the job, and often some tolls that
| don't exist for other databases (things like PostgREST come to
| mind). Sometime I wish it was a bit more idiomatic though.
|
| We're working on a lot of tooling at https://supabase.io. We're
| open source too. If there is anything in particular you're
| missing, let me know
| parhamn wrote:
| > The highest-order lesson I draw comes from the fact that that
| Postgres defied Fred Brooks' "Second System Effect" [Bro75].
| Brooks argued that designers often follow up on a successful
| first system with a second system that fails due to being
| overburdened with features and ideas. Postgres was Stonebraker's
| second system...
|
| I really hope we pull off some of these software adages.
| debaserab2 wrote:
| I don't think the fact that someone made a second version
| without succumbing to second system effect disproves the adage
| outright; for the vast majority of new programmers it's still
| worthwhile advice to adhere to.
|
| Like any principle or adage, if you are experienced enough to
| deeply understand the reason for it, you will know when it does
| or does not apply.
| parhamn wrote:
| > if you are experienced enough to deeply understand the
| reason for it, you will know when it does or does not apply.
|
| You wont have that experience (or use it really) if you stop
| at your first system!
|
| Seriously though, I agree, it's by definition that adages
| reveal truth. This one just feels so pessimistic and boring.
|
| My version of this would be "the third system is the best
| one". Make it once, learn the space and the limitations of
| your solution. Make it second time, learn what isn't useful.
| Make it just right on the third try!
| redler wrote:
| Postgres is truly an exception that proves the rule. "Sure,
| not every second system falls prey to this phenomenon, but
| you practically have to be Postgres to avoid it."
| fnord123 wrote:
| >Postgres is truly an exception that proves the rule.
|
| That's not what "an exception that proves the rule" means.
| It means "you may walk here" implies (proves the rule)
| there is a rule that you can't walk elsewhere.
|
| In any event, plenty of second systems are fine. It's
| ridiculously outdated advice. Any time someone replaces
| their Flask web app with a go or rust version, qed.
| redler wrote:
| An "exception proving the rule" is a colloquial phrase
| that can be interpreted in several ways. Yours is one of
| them. I'm using it here as a fun way to underscore the
| decades of consistent greatness of Postgres[QL], and the
| folly of using one of the most successful open source
| projects in history as a counterexample to Brooks's
| "second system".
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| You're right that colloquial meaning has drifted, and I
| won't correct anyone on that (and please don't read this
| as a rebuttal or direct reply to your post, which I'm
| just using as an attachment point).
|
| Interestingly, "proves the rule" is based on an earlier
| definition/synonym of "prove" meaning "test". When you
| read it as "{x} _tests_ the rule that {y}" then usage
| (especially older usage) of the phrase will usually make
| more sense.
| mjw1007 wrote:
| On the other hand, a lot of what made the original Postgres
| distinctive has ended up being either removed or considerably
| downplayed: the "object-relational" features, rules, versioned
| data, and so on.
|
| (I think what the paper refers to as "versioned data" is the
| "time-travel queries" stuff, not multi-version concurrency
| control which was added after Stonebraker's time.)
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| I would agree with you on rules point... at least relatively
| recently so once instead of triggers for views were on the
| scene... but I see some fairly robust use of the object-
| relational features and don't see much downplaying of them.
| Mind you, that doesn't mean they're necessarily commonplace
| (or necessarily should be)...
|
| My guess is the audience here on HN is less likely to run
| into these features in their day-to-day lives. By my
| observations, the HN audience tends to be generalist
| developer types that will readily just hand off database
| specialization to the most popular ORM layer for their first
| class development environment. And I would agree they'll not
| encounter these things... and if they do, they'll largely be
| annoyances.
|
| I work in "enterprise" type software and I see and do a lot
| of specifically database development (for PostgreSQL usually
| these days). If we consider PostgreSQL's type system as part
| of the object-relational feature set, I find I make use of
| that fairly frequently, for example compound types... also
| understanding that object-relational shouldn't be confused
| with "object-oriented". In my own work it's primarily the
| more advanced typing that shows up in both procedural code I
| write as well as queries in certain cases. Less so, though
| not completely absent is the inheritance feature; there are
| uses for it for sure, but a rather narrow set of cases (I
| mean outside of partitioning, which is the most common use
| case).
|
| Anyway... I'm not so sure it's really a matter of downplayed
| as much as it is less generally understood as PostgreSQL has
| become more popular.
| VectorLock wrote:
| >Postgres was Stonebraker's second system.
|
| What was his first system?
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| I am really interested in his latest work with SciDB and
| VoltDB also. Cool stuff to check out if you haven't yet.
| [deleted]
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| Ingres. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingres_(database)
|
| However, if you look at the projects he's worked on, he has a
| track record of writing database engines that end up in
| delivered database systems.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Ingres. The "post" in Postgres refers to the fact that it was
| the follow-up to Ingres.
| jansan wrote:
| Totally off-topic, but anybody who is into databases should at
| least have heard the name dBase, which was the most successful
| database in the 80s. However, they totally fucked up the release
| of version IV, which had serious reliability issues (not
| something you want in a database, in case you did not know). This
| lead to a dramatic decline and eventually the death of dBase. Who
| knows how the database and software landscape would look like had
| they released a version without major bugs.
| beagle3 wrote:
| I think it wasn't the IV version that killed it; After all,
| there were many dBase compatible programs at the time, e.g.
| FoxBase which were at least as good and comparably bug free.
|
| I suspect it's actually Microsoft Office with Access and a
| mature Excel that did it. Everyone was using office at the time
| (for Word, Excel, Powerpoint and the emerging Outlook), so
| access was "free"; and many things that dBase&co were used for,
| were actually becoming easier to do in Excel.
| typh00n wrote:
| Not kidding, my dad still uses dBase databases in his five-man
| company to this day. (non-IT company) I even re-wrote some of
| his programs in C# 10 years ago, so he can use some of them
| with a modern GUI, but not replacing the database to stay
| compatible with his original software and tools.
|
| I was surprised that databases are contained in *.dbf files,
| and no real database-service is present to process database-
| calls.
| eropple wrote:
| At the time, and depending on the OS...where would the
| service _be_? ;)
| sxcurry wrote:
| One of the first C programs I wrote pulled data from an Ingres
| Database, all running on a PDP 11/34. I now use PostgreSQL
| heavily on AWS. Thanks Michael Stonebraker!
| fcatalan wrote:
| I'm still developing web services connected to an Ingres
| instance running on a rickety ~22 year old Sun server with lots
| of bits and pieces cannibalized from its long dead siblings.
|
| We have the replacement system almost ready but won't really be
| able to swap the thing until the project owner retires (yay
| politics!).
|
| It's important but not time-critical, so if it dies before he
| goes we can just eat the downtime and take a couple of weeks to
| migrate.
| kcolford wrote:
| Is this the same Postgres as the PostgreSQL database we all know
| and love here on HN?
| breakingcups wrote:
| Yes, although originally it did not support SQL but QUEL.
|
| see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostgreSQL#History and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUEL_query_languages
| spearo77 wrote:
| Yes, the abstract doesn't mention it, but the PDF has this-
| > 1 OPENING > > Postgres was Michael
| Stonebraker's most ambitious project--his grand effort to build
| a one-size-fits-all database system.
| ryanmjacobs wrote:
| Yessir. Originally inspired by a db system called "Ingress", it
| was called "Postgres" then eventual PostgreSQL to emphasize the
| SQL part
| RedShift1 wrote:
| A good read but man these PDF's are terrible to read on mobile.
| gen220 wrote:
| Do submitters write academic papers in "native" LaTex these
| days? Or do they write in some intermediary format like
| markdown?
|
| If it's the latter, it'd be pretty trivial to generate a more
| mobile-friendly html format. I wonder if arxiv supports
| something like this.
| ufo wrote:
| Most academic papers are still written directly in Latex.
| davidgerard wrote:
| You would be unsurprised how many working scientists I know
| who confess to doing their papers in Word or LO and setting
| the font to Computer Modern.
|
| There's even a (humorous) economics paper on why this is an
| advantageous method:
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/joes.12318
| scott_s wrote:
| As others said, yes, academic papers are still written in
| LaTex. However, arXiv does not actually accept a pdf for
| submissions, but require the actual LaTex sources and they
| generate their own pdf. As LaTex-to-HTML improves, they could
| always generate it for all of the submissions for which they
| have the source.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| LaTeX2html is a thing too.
| scott_s wrote:
| On an iPhone, I don't have much difficulty as double-tapping a
| column zooms into that column in a readable way.
| boshomi wrote:
| See also: "The Postgres and Illustra Codelines" by Wei Hong:
|
| https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3226595.3226623
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