Most research projects never leave the academic environment. Occasionally, exceptional ones survive the transition from the university to the real world and go on to become a phenomenon. POSTGRESQL is one of those projects. Its popularity and success are a testament to the dedication and hard work of the POSTGRESQL global development team. Although developing an advanced database system is no small feat, maintaining and enhancing an inherited code base are even more challenging. The POSTGRESQL team has managed to not only improve the quality and usability of the system, but also expand its use among the Internet user community. This book marks a major milestone in the history of the project.
Postgres95, later renamed POSTGRESQL, started as a small project to overhaul Postgres. Postgres was a novel and feature-rich database system created by the students and staff at the University of California at Berkeley . Our goal with Postgres95 was to keep the powerful and useful features of this system while trimming down the bloat caused by much experimentation and research. We had a lot of fun reworking the internals. At the time, we had no idea where we were going with the project. The Postgres95 exercise was not research, but simply a bit of engineering housecleaning. By the spring of 1995 however, it had occurred to us that the Internet user community really needed an open source, SQL-based multiuser database. Happily, our first release was met with great enthusiasm, and we are very pleased to see the project continuing.
Obtaining information about a complex system like POSTGRESQL is a great barrier to its adoption. This book fills a critical gap in the documentation of the project and provides an excellent overview of the system. It covers a wide range of topics, from the basics to the more advanced and unique features of POSTGRESQL.
In writing this book, Bruce Momjian has drawn on his experience in helping beginners with POSTGRESQL. The text is easy to understand and full of practical tips. Momjian captures database concepts using simple and easy-to-understand language. He also presents numerous real-life examples throughout the book. In addition, he does an outstanding job of covering many advanced POSTGRESQL topics. Enjoy reading the book and have fun exploring POSTGRESQL! It is our hope this book will not only teach you about using POSTGRESQL, but also inspire you to delve into its innards and contribute to the ongoing POSTGRESQL development effort.
Jolly Chen and Andrew Yu, co-authors of Postgres95