Working on Postgres after 13 years on SQL Server with Panagiotis Antonopoulos

Okay, Panos, you just gave me the perfect introduction to ask the next question, which is I want to get into what it's like to work on Postgres after 13 years working on Azure SQL DB.

And obviously, when you start working on a new database, part of your perspective is going to be influenced by what you're already familiar with.

So I'm expecting some comparisons here, at least as they affected you and your work personally.

But what is it like to work on Postgres after 13 years on SQL Server?

Yeah, one thing that was interesting to me is that at the high level, it feels extremely familiar.

Once you get to the code, of course, and the exact features, there are differences.

But the concepts are very similar, like how transactions work, how storage works.

Of course, again, in the lower level details, there are substantial differences in how storage layout is in one versus the other, how exactly transactions are managed.

But But the concepts are extremely similar.

So that was one thing that felt good was that I felt that all the expertise I had built was very relevant.

Like I could quickly ramp up, engage in complex technical discussions.

Of course, I didn't know every line of code by any means, but at least I would very quickly understand how things work and contribute meaningfully to our designs.

Now, coming to the lower level, I would say there is definitely a big difference between what SQL has and Postgres.

Like SQL is like, you know, over the years we have accumulated and added a very large set of features that customers have been asking for.

This has pros and cons.

Even now, after working on Postgres and how much I love Postgres in the past couple of years, SQL is very complete as a product in terms of whether it's columns or indexes, advanced security features like some of what I mentioned, or even the thread concurrency model that it has.

It's really a pretty fascinating product.

But because of all of that, there has definitely been a layer of complexity in the code base, in our test cases and collateral.

Everything has grown over time and has become more complex.

Postgres feels a little bit on the other end of the spectrum.

It has all the basic capabilities one would expect on the database.

It's still, I feel, a little bit behind.

I hope the audience here doesn't hate me for that.

It feels a little bit behind on some of the more fancy, more complicated features that enterprise customers expect.

But the benefit of that is the committers have done an amazing job keeping the core engine extremely lean.