When did Postgres become cool? • Hacker News Board

Re: When did Postgres become cool?

#41

Post by convolvatron » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 7:37 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #27

Postgres has been cool since the early 2000s. SQLite is even cooler.

idk. I did worked on a distributed database startup in the mid-2000s and we started with a PG base since that made sense. it became pretty clear that the market was still based around MySQL and so we pivoted.

maybe we were mistaken, but lets say the picture was still fuzzy

Re: When did Postgres become cool?

#42

Post by genman » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 7:40 PM UTC

For me about 2001 or 2002, I think. It never became uncool since.

Re: When did Postgres become cool?

#43

Post by brimstedt » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 7:40 PM UTC

I see a lot of comment reflecting on MySQL and oracle vs postgresql.

Anyone with experience of MSSQL and PostgreSQL who'd like to comment on how it they compare?

Re: When did Postgres become cool?

#44

Post by sdsd » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

When MySQL was purchased by Oracle.

For a time, MariaDB was the new option, but its commitment to binary compatibility with MySQL made it feel bogged down.

Fun fact: Julian Assange contributed code to PostgreSQL a long time ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18464671

Re: When did Postgres become cool?

#45

Post by stavros » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

convolvatron wrote: post #41

stavros wrote: post #27

Postgres has been cool since the early 2000s. SQLite is even cooler.

idk. I did worked on a distributed database startup in the mid-2000s and we started with a PG base since that made sense. it became pretty clear that the market was still based around MySQL and so we pivoted. maybe we were mistaken, but lets say the picture was still fuzzy

You're right, the recommendation in the LAMP era was MySQL, but it ate some of my data once (the disk got full and it kept writing) and I never trusted it again.

Re: When did Postgres become cool?

#46

Post by gtowey » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

sdsd wrote: post #44

When MySQL was purchased by Oracle. For a time, MariaDB was the new option, but its commitment to binary compatibility with MySQL made it feel bogged down. Fun fact: Julian Assange contributed code to PostgreSQL a long time ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18464671

This is the most direct explanation. The blog post avoids talking about this at all, but I'm guessing that's to keep the post informative and not let it degrade into a database flame war.

As a MySQL DBA for the past 20 years it was practically the only choice until Oracle bought Sun, then it was instantly radioactive. A shame because the fears people had were unfounded and some of the best development work has been done since then.

Re: When did Postgres become cool?

#47

Post by pcthrowaway » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

Interesting thread/post on Heroku's choice to go with Postgres, and speculation that that decision was pivotal in Postgres's rise its status as the relational database of choice for hackers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31425115

Re: When did Postgres become cool?

#48

Post by leroman » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

For me after trying all the "cool" stuff like mongo etc, seeing the great support Posgres has for JSON just made it an easy choice.

Use all the relational stuff but still have nice native support for JSON and useful extensions.

What else do I need?

Even now, with the addition of vector stores we get PGVector and so it just reinforces my choice over time.

Re: When did Postgres become cool?

#49

Post by pixl97 » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

dymk wrote: post #26

xnx wrote: post #18

Postgres became cool when the scales fell off peoples eyes and they realized that very few use cases necessitate or even benefit from "NoSQL" databases.

It was way before that - it was when people got fed up with the string handling and implicit type casting stupidity of MySQL

I think a large amount of mysql was based on PHP applications with default mysql support.

Re: When did Postgres become cool?

#50

Post by weinzierl » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

dymk wrote: post #26

xnx wrote: post #18

Postgres became cool when the scales fell off peoples eyes and they realized that very few use cases necessitate or even benefit from "NoSQL" databases.

It was way before that - it was when people got fed up with the string handling and implicit type casting stupidity of MySQL

This is also my opinion and I think before that MySQL was known for fast and Postgres for features and correctness. I think the change went both ways, people realized that MySQL's casual approach only got them so far and at the same time Postgres focused more on performance without giving up its existing qualities. I think Postgres became cool when it became fast (too).