From: Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
Message-Id: <200104080419.AAA21711@candle.pha.pa.us>
Subject: Re: Better Features document?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0104071535240.5704-100000@olympus.scw.org>
	"from Joel Burton at Apr 7, 2001 03:52:00 pm"
To: Joel Burton <jburton@scw.org>
Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 00:19:51 -0400 (EDT)
CC: pgsql-general@postgresql.org, pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
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Sounds great.

I have collected some comments from people about PostgreSQL vs. other
databases at:

	ftp://candle.pha.pa.us/pub/postgresql/comparison.mbox

This may help.  You can also link to the docs and my book at:

	http://www.postgresql.org/docs/awbook.html

to give people more detailed information about the features.  I think
such a page would be a great idea.  I can help too.

> 
> One thing that confused me when I started seriously looking at PostgreSQL
> was the features it had relative to other competitors. We have so many
> powerful features that are often underused by new users:
> 
>   * procedural languages
>   * triggers
>   * rules
>   * views
>   * custom aggregate functions
>   * ... and more
> 
> and so on. The documentation does a good job (& gets better all the
> time!) at explaining this, but many users never read that far into the
> documentation, and, of course, many people never get to the documentation
> at all -- they're evaluating software by a 10-minute glance through the
> web site.
> 
> We have a features document at
> 
>    http://www.postgresql.org/features.html
> 
> but this covers the architecture of the system (postgres / postmaster,
> etc), and very little about some of our other competitive advantages.
> 
> My fear is that users & potential users come to PG w/o learning what a
> view is, how triggers can be helpful in designing database systems, why
> custom aggregates are so great, etc. (Those of us w/CS backgrounds do well
> to remember how many web database designers don't have that background!)
> 
> Therefore, people compare us sometimes w/other database systems (mostly
> MySQL simply as 'MySQL seems faster and easier to install, but PostgreSQL
> has some features, like transactions, that may be useful to complicated
> databases', completely missing how many PG features are important to
> everyone that is designing databases, simple or large.
> 
> I started writing a 'Features+' document a few months ago, but it got sat
> aside during a busy work time. I'd like to restart that work.
> 
> I don't want to recreate the manuals -- I envision something like a 5-page
> 'product datasheet' that explains just enough about what a trigger is so
> that users have no excuse for not digging into that chapter, and that
> people understand how fantasic procedural languages are.
> 
> Before I start digging into that, does anyone know if there
> exists a short- or medium- length (2-5 p) document that explains, for
> ordinary database mortals, about the sophisticated features of PG?
> 
> Does anyone want to help put this together?
> 
> 
> -- 
> Joel Burton   <jburton@scw.org>
> Director of Information Systems, Support Center of Washington
> 
> 
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-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
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