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Kotlin on the backend
In this PostgreSQL introduction, we'll cover its gensis, key features, benefits and all the necessary things we should remember about.
In this article, I will provide you with a beginner-friendly introduction to PostgreSQL. Together, we will see what exactly PostgreSQL is and learn more about its:
And a friendly reminder- this PostgreSQL introduction is a continuation of a top 8 databases series I covered here.
If you enjoy whiteboard animations, then right here you can find a video version of this article:
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As usual, let’s start everything by learning more about PostgreSQL genesis.
PostgreSQL history started in the 1980s at the University of California, Berkeley when Michael Stonebraker began working on a new project, which would be the successor of Ingres. The goal of this project was to address the problems plaguing the databases of that time.
Initially, the project was called POSTGRES, highlighting that it is the successor of Ingres (which was created at the same university). But then, in 1996, the name was changed to PostgreSQL to emphasize its support for SQL. In 2007, the developer team decided to stick with the name PostgreSQL and Postgres as an alias.
But back to the development topic, the project target was to introduce support for data types and relationships between them. And, although the team took a lot of ideas from Ingres, the codebase was created from scratch.
The PostgreSQL introduction took place in 1986 when the team released official papers describing the system. Two years later, they performed a demo of a prototype at the ACM SIGMOD Conference. The team was gradually releasing new versions with new features and changes. Nevertheless, the number of feature requests and users began to surpass them, and the project ended in 1994, and POSTGRES Version 4.2 was released under the MIT license.
As the official date of the PostgreSQL release, we take 8th July of 1996, when Marc Fournier created the first non-university server for Postgres development.
So, with all of that being said, let’s answer the question- what is PostgreSQL?
Well, it’s an open-source relational database management system (aka RDBMS), based on the POSTGRES Version 4.2 (which we’ve already covered).
One of the key features of PostgreSQL is its support for a wide range of data types. Moreover, it also supports data types for special purposes, like arrays, JSON, and XML.
In addition to this, Postgres is also extendable and comes with a number of features that make it well-suited for a wide range of applications, like:
What’s worth mentioning here as well, the Postgres license lets everyone use, modify and distribute it entirely for free. Regardless of whether we do it commercially or for personal use.
Nextly, let’s take a while to go through the introduction of PostgreSQL’s advantages:
With all of that great things being covered in our PostgreSQL introduction, let’s see its drawbacks:
As the next thing, let’s see what PostgreSQL is well suited for:
Please keep in mind that these are not all possible use cases. And if you need a mature relational database management system, which supports various data types, complex queries, and large datasets, then PostgreSQL can be a great choice.
As the last thing, let’s take a second to see the list of companies using PostgreSQL.
As the first one- Apple. It uses Postgres to store and manage data for a number of its internal systems, including its online store and customer support systems. They even replaced MySQL with Postgres as an embedded DB in the OS X Lion.
And as the next one, Instagram. Yes, a giant with over 2 billion users makes use of PostgreSQL as one of the main databases for their system.
Of course, the list of all companies is much longer, but let’s see a couple more:
And that’s all for this article, in which we cover what exactly PostgreSQL is. Together, we walked through its genesis, advantages, disadvantages, and use cases, as well.
I hope you enjoy this series about the most popular databases on my blog. Please keep in mind, that I have other articles, in which you can learn how to work with Postgres in practice, for example:
Alternatively, you might wan to check other articles in a series:
Finally, the task for you: please leave a comment with your thoughts or feedback in the comments section below.