Best resources to grow yourself on PostgreSQL

Finding out the right Knowledge and resources to learn and connect with community can be challangin. This Blog will help you to save 100 of hrs scrolling around internet and get the most value of time

Hello, and welcome to a free monthly edition of my newsletter. I’m Ajay, and each week I tackle reader questions about PostgreSQL, working and implementing PG with best practices, and anything else that’s stressing you out in PostgreSQL world. Send me your questions and in return, I’ll humbly offer actionable real-talk advice. 🤜🤛

If you find this post valuable, check out some of my other posts:

1. How to decide your PostgreSQL backup strategy?

2. Index Corruption in PostgreSQL: The Hidden Cost

3. How To Monitor PostgreSQL Like a Boss!!

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PostgreSQL is a powerful and versatile open-source relational database management system that is widely used in a variety of industries and applications. It is known for its scalability, reliability, and robust feature set. As a PostgreSQL user, it is important to stay up-to-date with the latest developments and best practices in order to optimize performance, scalability, and security.

Why this topic?

Whenever I talk to my PG friends and see the discussion on the forums, one of the common themes is ‘it’s difficult to find the right resources and content to consume. Specifically with the content all over the place on the internet including youtube, blogs, commercial websites, and forums. 

You must be thinking - How this is going to help me?

In this blog post, we will explore some of the best resources for learning and staying informed about PostgreSQL. We will take a look at community groups, books, interesting people to connect with, and other resources that can help you deepen your understanding of this powerful database system. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced user, these resources will provide you with valuable insights and practical tips for making the most of your PostgreSQL setup. I have done a lot of research and reading so that you don’t have to spend time finding the right resources for PostgreSQL.

You will find 4 interesting sections in this blog post

1. Blog Post/Newsletter:

This section is dedicated to some of my favorite blogs I read and also strong individuals who directly contribute towards the Community. I am talking about getting real-deal and knowledge about PostgreSQL internals, real-time use cases and articles from various perspectives like thought leadership, database consultants, DBAs,  developers and more..  

2. Community Groups

There is more learning with the Community!!

As you are well aware that PostgreSQL is a community drive project- it’s helpful to be part of the right community to keep the learning going and also stay connected with technology gurus for direct access.  This section will include Slack, Reddit and stackflow details which will help you to stay connected with the community. Also- if you are Linkedin person there two 2 amazing groups you can join to share information , ask questions and network. 

3. Books to read.

First of all the important part- Disclaimer. I am not getting paid to write about any of the books, authors or resources in the blog. Some of the books I have personally read and referred. I have a very strong network of PostgreSQL people who recommended some of the books to me.

4. Interesting People to follow/Connect

List is very personal however these folks share very insightful knowledge and engage with PostgreSQL discussion on twitter. Irrespective of the organization they work for-they all are committed to share the knowledge and help the community on the Social Media platform.

New to the PG world? Useful  Information - In case you are new to the PG world.

Website - https://www.postgresql.org/

Mailing List https://www.postgresql.org/list/

• The first mailing list is pgsql-general@lists.postgresql.org for general PostgresQL related questions.

• If it is a more technical question about how PostgreSQL internals work, subscribing to the pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org mailing list makes more sense. 

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  Blog Post/Newsletter:

1. Bruce Momjian 

Blog Link:  https://momjian.us/main/blogs/pgblog.html

I don’t think Bruce needs an introduction to the PostgreSQL community, He is one of the PG veterans, Core contributor and Thought Leader. I have been reading Bruce’s Blog for more than 8 Years now. He writes about Thought leadership, PostgreSQL Internals, and how to solve some of the real-time problems you and I see on the day to day basis. 

2. Robert Haas 

Blog Link:  http://rhaas.blogspot.com/

Robert Haas is PostgreSQL's major contributor and committer. PostgreSQL features that Robert has authored or coauthored include unlogged tables, fast-path locking, index-only scans, and parallel query. His blogs are very detailed and with really good examples. His blog also has lot of sense of Humor and wittiness apart from a wealth of technical knowledge. He has written the best blogs about vacuums and auto vacuums. 

3. Hironobu SUZUKI 

Blog Link: https://www.interdb.jp/pg/

Hironobu Suzuki, the author of The Internals of PostgreSQL and pg_plan_inspector. His blog post is very focused on PostgreSQL internals and understanding how memory, processes works internally. Hironobu blog is one of the best resources you can refer to understand deeply on the topics like Concurrency Control, Concurrency Control, and WALs. “Wal Ahead logging” is one of the best blog to understand how WALs work. 

4. Lætitia AVROT 

Blog Link: https://mydbanotebook.org/

Another PostgreSQL enthusiast, co-founder of Postgres Women and a member of the PostgreSQL Code of Conduct Committee. She is very passionate about writing real-time challenges from DBA, Dev, and consultant perspectives and how to solve them.

5. PostgreSQL Tutorials https://www.postgresqltutorial.com/

Specific blog post around  SQL concepts and from Developer's perspective. Smaller and consumables bite with diagrams and graphics to convey the concept and queries as an example for testing and learning.

6. Postgres Help https://postgreshelp.com/

A good collection of PostgreSQL blogs for Application developers, DBAs, Tricks and Tips. A specific section for some of the useful SQLs for day-to-day use.  Look out for the How to section for Installation related recommendations and steps. 

Interesting People to follow/Connect

Do you know all the amazing People who build PostgreSQL? 

First of all, a very good start is 

https://postgresql.life/  “PostgreSQL Person of the Week”

Learn about people who contribute to PostgreSQL not just as developers but also by doing testing, blogs, deployment & running the PUGs and conferences. 

Some of the Twitter accounts to connect with: 

Personally, I feel that connecting with all these amazing people gives access to some of the really top-notch technical people through a social media platform. All of them share really great insights about PostgreSQL and the community and engage/help rest of the world with PG-related questions. 

1. Craig Kerstiens https://twitter.com/craigkerstiens

2. Devrim Gündüz  https://twitter.com/DevrimGunduz

3. Andres Freund https://twitter.com/AndresFreundTec

4. Dimitri Fontaine https://twitter.com/tapoueh?lang=en

5. Thomas Munro https://twitter.com/MengTangmu

6. Fujii Masao https://twitter.com/fujii_masao

7. Lætitia Avrot https://twitter.com/l_avrot

8. Magnus Hagander https://twitter.com/magnushagander

9. Jonathan S. Katz https://twitter.com/jkatz05

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Community Groups

Communities for asking questions or getting help

• Stackoverflow  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/postgresql

• Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/PostgreSQL/

• Local user groups https://www.postgresql.org/community/user-groups/

• Slack community - https://postgres-slack.herokuapp.com/

  Linked in Groups

• “PostgreSQL Professionals- 15K+ members” https://www.linkedin.com/groups/51776/

  • *most active group so far*

• Postgres - 5K members https://www.linkedin.com/groups/41621/

  Books to read

1. PostgreSQL 14 Administration Cookbook: Over 175 proven recipes for database administrators to manage enterprise databases effectively

   1. by Simon Riggs  (Author), Gianni Ciolli (Author)

   2. Focused towards database management, administration and Best practices.

   3. Book Link

2. PostgreSQL: Up and Running: A Practical Guide to the Advanced Open Source Database 3rd Edition, Kindle Edition

   1. by Regina O. Obe (Author), Leo S. Hsu (Author)  

   2. Format: Kindle Edition(only)

   3. Focused towards DB administration, Replication and how to use some of the specific features with examples.

   4. Book link

3. Troubleshooting PostgreSQL

   1. by Hans-Jürgen Schönig (Author) 

   2. All around troubleshooting with topics - Detect bottlenecks caused by missing indexes, Optimizing data structures for optimal memory footprint, Write better, performance-optimized stored procedures etc

   3. Format: Kindle Edition

   4. Book Link

4. Beginning Databases with PostgreSQL: From Novice to Professional (Beginning From Novice to Professional) 2nd Edition

   1. by Richard Stones (Author), Neil Matthew  (Author)

   2. Focused towards application development and Highlights the most popular PostgreSQL APIs, including C, Perl, PHP, and Java. A lot of interesting topics around database design principles.

   3. Book Link

5. “The Art of PostgreSQL”

   1. By - Dimitri Fontaine

   2.  https://theartofpostgresql.com/

6. 1. Focused towards Application Developers and SQL’s. Comes with a lot of practical examples and dataset so that readers can test and see the results themselves. 

Stay Tuned for the next blog post where I will share information about the tools, and extensions available for developers, application engg , DBAs and consultants. 

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