PGSQL Phriday #003 Summary: What is the PostgreSQL Community to me? 

~ SqlAsylum ~ 2 Comments

Last week for “PGSQL Phriday” I posed this question. “What is the PostgreSQL Community to me?” ← this is my entry as well. 

Summary: 

Listed below is a summary of each person that took part and some of my comments related to the blog post.  It was wonderful reading through the blog posts and getting different perspectives from others.  

Andreas Scherbaum (Ads)  

https://andreas.scherbaum.la/blog/archives/1125-PGSQL-Phriday-003-What-is-the-PostgreSQL-Community-to-me.html

Ads did a great job of listing a good number of resources for the community that is currently available.  He also touched on the personal aspect of the community which is very important.  Many of us in the community become good friends with others and share many of the same adventures!  I hope everyone in the community can have those experiences.  

Ryan Booz 

PostgreSQL Community: Passionate, Knowledgeable, and Thoughtful

Ryan gave us a great overview of the community,  talking about its diverse nature of it and the important things we need to all focus on.  We all need to be Thoughtful, Knowledgable, and passionate about Postgres.  He hopes that in 2023 we will see a lot more of this and that the community continues to grow!  I whole heartedly agree with this and expect to see this happen as well.  

Ryan Lambert

https://blog.rustprooflabs.com/2022/12/pgsql-phriday-003

Ryan talked about how the community was helpful and how he started off with PostGIS and stayed for the long haul.  He gave us a good list of resources on where to find the community.  He reminds us that the People are what makes the community so great and worthwhile!  

Francesco Tisiot

https://ftisiot.net/posts/postgresql-community/

Francesco is probably the newest member of the community that took part in #PGSQL Phriday.  Which is great!  We love having new members of the community involved.  He broke this down into lists of how the community has been good for him and he showed lists of how to get involved.  Even offering up his services if you need assistance on blog/call for paper in the future.  Thank you, Francesco!

Overall

I’m really happy that I took part in #PGSQL Phriday.  I hope to continue taking part each month and continue to write more on my blog about the PG Community. I look forward to seeing the community grow and helping others.  

Since I’m a coordinator for several of the PG US conference events you see or participate in. I will offer the same thing as Francesco If you have any need to review papers, or sessions, or have questions about how to get involved. Feel free to reach out to me and I’ll happily jump on zoom or chat and we can discuss for hours.   

What is the PostgreSQL community to me? #PGSQL Phriday #003

~ SqlAsylum ~ 1 Comment

What is #PGPSQLPhriday

For PGSQL Phriday #003 I asked us to consider the PostgreSQL community, what it means to us, and how we would get started as a new users.

I started this topic for #PGSQLPhriday with ulterior motives.  I wanted to hear about the community from other people in the community so that I could find more ways to make to improve the PG community.  Yes, I did just say community way too much! 

I’ve worked in many different communities in my career and I love to help and support many communities. When I started in PG about 5 years ago I started looking for the community and unfortunately didn’t have the best experience finding it.  Yes, I found the resources you will see listed below, but I didn’t *feel* like I had found the community.   

I started attending conferences, communities usually shine at conferences more than anywhere else.  Unfortunately at my first few conferences I still wasn’t really finding the community I was looking for.  So I did what any average extroverted introvert does.  I volunteered!  

See I have a certain set of skills….

Particular set of skills - KPSQ-LP Fayetteville 97.3 FM

No not those skills….

I’ve helped to build a few communities and put on conferences in my “spare time”.  So I figured I would volunteer to focus on ways to make the community better.  2 years into this role now and I feel a lot better about the community when I attend events.  I hope we can greet so many new people to the community as well. 

Ok, Mr. Long Winded!  You haven’t answered the question? 

What is the PG community to me?   

The PG Community to me is a place where you can go to meet people that have gone through many of the same nightmares as you, meet people that want to reach out and help with your problems, people that will come to your aid when you have a down server or some sort of question you just can’t answer. The community is where you go when the engineers keep asking “I don’t understand why I can’t have 64 Jsonb fields on one table….I see no issue to query that directly with 100 million rows of data”.  Or if you are the engineer asking this question come join the community and let us tell you how you can do it better. 

Community is a resource and a group of people you learn with, and figure out solutions with, and while you are helping the community grow you are growing as well.  

Second question? How do you get started?

Well that’s easy! Here is a step by step.

  1. Scroll to bottom of this page.
  2. Click on links.
  3. Join slack, a user group or attend a conference!
  4. Ask questions and help answer questions
  5. Perhaps present at a local user group! Or conference!
  6. Make millions of dollars!!!!! Ok for legal reasons let me be clear. This *may* not happen to you, but what if it does?

I look forward to growing the PG community with all of you! I hope that we can create a welcoming environment for the thousands of new Postgres specialists out there.  

Listed below are my favorite resources related to the community. Sorted by my most used first.  

Slack Channel 

PG US User groups 

PG Conferences – link to all PG Events. 

Pg NYC  –Amazing NYC conference. 

PG Chicago 04-20-23 – First time Chicago event! 

PG Mailing lists 

PGSQL Phriday #003: What is the PostgreSQL community to you?

~ SqlAsylum ~ 5 Comments
Picture taken at NYC PG Conf 2022

I am excited to continue on the #PGSQL Phriday blogging series.  This series was first started by Ryan Booz earlier this year. We are now on the third edition, which is all about the community.   

What is the PostgreSQL community to you?  

I personally am relatively new to the PG community. I only started attending events and working with PG about 5 years ago.  I’ve talked to a lot of different people in the community and I’ve found many different people have different ideas of what the community is and where it is.  

I would love to hear more varied views and opinions on this topic. Here are some ideas if you need help getting started with a blog post.  

  • List of resources you commonly use in the community? 
  • Favorite event(s) that you attend to make you closely connected with the community? 
  • A story of help/work provided by you or someone else in the community? 
  • How would you get started in the community?  

How does #PGSQLPhriday work?

  • Post your blog post about “What is the PostgreSQL community to you?” by Friday, December 16th. December 2nd.
  • Include “PGSQL Phriday #003” in the title or first paragraph of the blog posting.
  • Link back to this blog posting, for example: “Pat here is my voice on Community!  ‘PGSQL Phriday #003′”.
  • Announce your blog post in one or any of these places:
  • Interact with other blog posts about this topic!  We hope to see conversations happening, slack, Twitter, or directly in blog comments works as well.