Experts in Postgres and Open Source Infrastructure

Project Design Simpycity's core philosophy is that the DBA is going to perform the vast majority of the schema design without the aid of a conventional ORM. This is a marked divergence from most other ORMs and database abstraction layers, and it has an impact on how your project should be designed. The best results with Simpycity will be seen with a strong up-front requirements analysis, thorough schema design, and …

I recently configured a complete Pylons + PostgreSQL environment for a customer. The operating system was (of course) Ubuntu Hardy. The system included the use of Simpycity and WSGI. Although I could never done it without the Pylons documentation, I found that it was unnecessary complicated for those who just want to get it done. These are the steps I took:

Install some dependencies: The use of …

PostgreSQL Conference East is being held at historic Drexel University on April 3rd through 5th 2009 . This is the second call for papers. The call for papers ends Feb 23rd and speakers will be notified on the 27th. You may submit your talk here. We are looking for a wide range of topics. Can you speak on any of the below topics? What about a different topic? As long …

Last Saturday I gave a talk at the Northwest Python Day in Seattle. Unfortunately it was a short talk of only 30 minutes so I didn't get to cover all the topics I wanted but I was able to briefly share on PostgreSQL and on configuring PostgreSQL (Mammoth) Replicator. Just for grins I started the talk off with a question, "Please raise your hand if you are running Ubuntu." There …

As I diligently prepare for PostgreSQL Conference East 09 by trying to ensure that we have enough talks (hint: talk submission closes Feb 27th). We have a suggested hotel and that everyone knows it is going on (including the Groovy, Python, MySQL, PHP and Ruby communities), I take heart in knowing that our community PostgreSQL can have a well thought out, pointed and productive discussion like no other. I …

PostgreSQL Conference, U.S., East 09 will be held in Philadelphia at historic Drexel University from April 3rd through 5th. The call for papers is now out.

As always we let our submissions define our actual tracks. If you have something you want to talk about it. Submit it. As long as it is about PostgreSQL (or doing something with PostgreSQL) we will consider it.

We are seeking creative ideas about …

Using Simpycity is as easy as its name suggests - quick, easy. Simple. In keeping with that philosophy, Simpycity offers 3 constructs for database access: Function, Query, and Raw. At a glance, each name describes the type of access it offers: Function providing access through stored procedures, Query constructing a simple SQL query from your arguments, and Raw, which allows you to write your own SQL query directly. We will …

With everyone and their mothers trying to build the next awesome website and next amazing web service, you'll probably find that SQL databases are getting more and more popular. As it turns out though, writing complex software on databases is harder than it looks.

Hard enough that database abstractions are growing in popularity, pushing "database agnosticism" and turning the database into a dumb, interchangable data store. As a database developer, …

We have a customer that recently asked me to comment on which I would use for a particular problem. This is a simple validating lookup. For example, CHECK(VALUE IN ('foo','bar')). Should we use a CHECK constraint, FK, ENUM or DOMAIN?

A CHECK constraint is easy to apply and has simple syntax. It is also extremely flexible in solving other types of validating problems. If your valid values change you must …

The PostgreSQL + Replicator meeting logs for 01-08-09 are up. This was a long meeting held on #replicator using the Freenode IRC service. Topics covered were the removal of the Single Point of Failure of the MCP which is partially done. The new in the PostgreSQL backend forwarder works but now the question is how to safely handle failover. Take a look, maybe you have an idea.