Robby on Rails: PostgreSQL: An elephant wearing a hula skirt and I find it sexy

PostgreSQL: An elephant wearing a hula skirt and I find it sexy

Robby Russell — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 18:30:00 -0500

Last week, I gave a live presentation to ~250 people, which was basically me walking through the process of using Ruby on Rails to talk to a legacy database¹. For my example, I used the Dell DVD database... the PostgreSQL version. You can review some comments about my presentation by reviewing this entry on the blog of Ryan Davis. I wrapped quite a bit of the database in a few minutes and then showed what another 45 minutes of work could do with Rails. I’ll tarball that code and post it online soon.

Alex Bunardzic found it practical. I’ll take that as a compliment. ;-)

Earlier, I noticed this blog entry by Chris… where he said, “PostgreSQL also seems to be growing more briskly among the database category, while MySQL declines modestly. I guess that’s good news for Robby.” What exactly made me happy? This bullet made by Tim O’Reilly on Radar in his post, State of the Computer Book Market, Part 2.

“A surprise to many may be the strong growth of PostgreSQL, up 84% over a year ago. We’ve also been hearing some signs of growth in the Postgres market from our “alpha geek” radar, with reasons given including better support for geo data, and better handling of very large data sets. New companies like Greenplum and EnterpriseDB have also brought a little focus to this market. We’re updating our PostgreSQL book, and watching this market closely.”

That’s awesome! Go PostgreSQL!

Then to my surprise, I was contacted by CRN (again) to get my thoughts on MySQL’s awesome storage-engine plugin system... which showed up a few hours later in this article. The writer of that article managed to goof my last name (Robby Hill?)... and hopefully that gets resolved soon. ;-)

As I said at Canada on Rails in front of 250 people, “I find databases… sexy.”

(free desktop wallpaper!)

Why Rails? Why PostgreSQL?

Rails.. that’s a no-brainer.

PostgreSQL? Well.. they have compatible licenses… no dual-license smell when your trying to sell your application as a complete solution… and as Rails is database agnostic... there is no reason not to give PostgreSQL a try.

Who uses PostgreSQL on Rails?

CDBaby
Shopify
PLANET ARGON (on almost every project we work on…)
you…?

If your using PostgreSQL on Rails… email me... I’d love to hear and share your story on my O’Reilly blog, like I did with Derek Sivers and Jeremy Kemper of CDBaby a few months ago, which you can read here.

again… I find databases sexy...

If your a PLANET ARGON hosting customer… you can follow these instructions to install PostgreSQL on your PLANET ARGON hosting account.

¹ According to the Rails convention (and by me)... any database created pre-Rails or doesn’t follow the conventions is considered legacy. ;-)

"PostgreSQL: An elephant wearing a hula skirt and I find it sexy" by Joe

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 05:01:52 -0500

That wallpaper is just wrong. Wrong.

"PostgreSQL: An elephant wearing a hula skirt and I find it sexy" by Jeff Casimir

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:21:30 -0500

And that’s what I get for not previewing. Fixed links…

"PostgreSQL: An elephant wearing a hula skirt and I find it sexy" by Jeff Casimir

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:19:47 -0500

I’m allergic to MySQL.

Postgres or bust! I’m surprised that many Rails-popular hosts (Site5, Dreamhost, others) don’t offer Postgres. Cheers to Planet Argon for getting it right. I have been constantly surprised that people who choose Rails over PHP don’t also make the jump from My to Postgres.

BTW, Postgres powers all my personal and client sites:

http://www.workshopforgood.org
http://www.casimircreative.com”
http://www.chavezschools.org“

BTW, Robby, I’ve been thinking a lot about the ideas of doing more workshops in the future. I’ll email you with more thoughts later this week.

-Jeff

"PostgreSQL: An elephant wearing a hula skirt and I find it sexy" by David Rice

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 09:06:44 -0500

Robby, you’ve always been an advocate of PostgreSQL. Coming from a PHP background i’ve always been a big MySQL user… what would you say the greatest benefits would be for someone like myself to switch to using Postgres?

"PostgreSQL: An elephant wearing a hula skirt and I find it sexy" by Robby Russell

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:55:01 -0500

Cesar,

Yes, it’ll be under a MIT or BSD license.

Randy,

I use psql from the terminal. Most of my development time-especially with Ruby on Rails-is spent working in script/console and when I do work directly with PostgreSQL, I use the command line tool. It works great. :-)

"PostgreSQL: An elephant wearing a hula skirt and I find it sexy" by Randy Schmidt

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:12:26 -0500

What is the best tool for working with PostgreSQL on os x? Do you use one?

"PostgreSQL: An elephant wearing a hula skirt and I find it sexy" by Cesar

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 03:51:14 -0500

Is the code for acts_as_legacy open source?

"PostgreSQL: An elephant wearing a hula skirt and I find it sexy" by Will Reese

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 01:43:34 -0500

For me, both Rails and PostgreSQL are no-brainers. I use them for every project I can, and would recommend them to anyone interested in web development. :)

I’ve been a PostgreSQL administrator for almost 4 years now, and I love it. Our “Enterprise” applications support 1000+ users and large datasets, which PostgreSQL handles just fine.

My team works in a very agile development environment utilizing mostly open source tools. Unfortunately, we have not adopted Rails as much as I would like. While I can’t divulge much information regarding these applications, I can give details on this very rewarding volunteer project using Rails and PostgreSQL.

http://blog.rezra.com/articles/2006/04/21/pushing-the-limits-of-rails

That was my first “production” Rails application, and I haven’t looked back. :)

"PostgreSQL: An elephant wearing a hula skirt and I find it sexy" by Ryan Daigle

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:15:46 -0500

Guess that makes you an “alpha-geek”?

You guys at PA are the ones who turned me on to Postgres – so I owe you a big thank you! Glad to hear your talk went well.