Interviews

Magnus Hagander

1. How did you first get involved with PostgreSQL?

   Back in the ancient days I was playing around a bit with Postgres95, and at some point thereafter when I needed a database for a project (and couldn't pay for one of the big commercial ones), PostgreSQL as it had then become was the logical choice, especially as I had gotten used to using more advanced SQL than the competing open source products of the day could do.

2. How did you get interested in the area that is the subject of your talk?

   I started hanging out on the PostgreSQL mailing list all the way back then but spent a lot of time initially just reading. And at some point I just realized that so many of the people interacting on those lists were the type of people that I wanted to work with, so I ended up joining.

3. What is one feature of PostgreSQL that more people should use?

   It almost pains me to say it, since it's a function that's been around for a long time, but people are still not using it: Window functions.

4. What future area of PostgreSQL development are you most excited about?

   Currently that's probably the work in the area of providing multiple different storage methods (and doing it the right way!) in order to optimize for very different kinds of workloads.