postgresql when it's not your job

27 October 2010

18:51

Things I Do Not Understand: “Web-Scale.”

What does this mean?

It clearly means something along the lines of, “Can handle lots of transactions per unit time,” but how many?

I mean, WordPress with WP-SuperCache is “web scale” if all that is meant is, “Can be used to implement a high volume site,” but I assume those who are touting something as “web scale” are aiming higher than that.

Anyone care to offer a quantitative definition of this term?

25 October 2010

19:34

Django and PostgreSQL “Idle In Transaction” Connections

A well-known issue that can come up with Django sites running on PostgreSQL is that connections in “Idle in Transaction” state can pile up. There’s a relatively straight-forward fix, but ultimately, it’s due to a bug in Django’s transaction management, at least when PostgreSQL is the back-end.

Let’s run through it. Read the rest of this entry »

26 September 2010

22:44

Python build problems on X OS 10.6 Snow Leopard?

If you are having them, the fix is here.

18 July 2010

13:34

ORMs and Their Discontents: PGXPUG Day OSCON 2010 Presentation

Here are the slides for my talk at PGXPUG Day OSCON 2010.

3 June 2010

13:30

Introduction to PostgreSQL: Open Source Bridge 2010 Presentation

The slides from my talk, Introduction to PostgreSQL are available here.

6 May 2010

14:19

SFPUG: Hot Standby and Streaming Replication

The archive video for the February 9, 2010 SFPUG meeting is now available: Read the rest of this entry »

28 February 2010

19:46

On switching away from Core Data

Brent Simmons has a very good piece about switching away from using Core Data to using SQLite directly in his iPhone app. Substituting “any common ORM” for “Core Data” (which, after all, is all Core Data is) and “any SQL database” for SQLite, he encounters the most common problems that plague those trying to develop scalable solutions on top of ORMs.

23 December 2009

13:21

SFPUG: Operator Exclusion Constraints

The archive video for the December 8, 2009 SFPUG meeting is now available: Read the rest of this entry »

22 December 2009

16:02

SFPUG: Continuent Tungsten with PostgreSQL

The archive video for the November 10, 2009 SFPUG meeting is now available: Read the rest of this entry »

7 November 2009

19:23

Django, PostgreSQL, and Autocommit

In part 1, we ran down a list of the standard Django features for controlling transactions. Now, we’re going to look at some ways to optimize how these tranactions happen.

Read the rest of this entry »

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