Message-ID: <3804545B.FC9376E8@trust.ee>
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 12:43:55 +0300
From: Hannu Krosing <hannu@trust.ee>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us>
CC: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org>,
	PostgreSQL-documentation <docs@postgreSQL.org>
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Outline for PostgreSQL book
References: <199910121716.NAA29586@candle.pha.pa.us>
	<380408E9.9D4F554A@prima.net.id>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Chairudin Sentosa Harjo wrote:
> 
> You should put one special section to talk about DATE. (datetime,
> abstime, etc..)
> That is the most asked by the mailing list.
> You could put tons of samples on how to use and manipulate DATE.
> ie. How to get the time, how to get the minute, how to get the hour,
>     how to get the month in number (1,2,3,4),
>     how to get the month in word (JAN, FEB, MAR)
    how to select all individuals that are more than 50 years old today
at 12:00PM

And ouf course about TimeZones (why sometimes I insert one date and 
get out another ;-p)

And of course mention that mostly it is not PostgreSQL's problem but
just a very hairy subject ;(

And perhaps some discussion about Date/Time types also in the section 
for programming languages (what you get from date field, how to be 
sure that what you give to postgresql is understood correctly)

> The most important thing is to have alot of samples.
> Practical samples are more useful than just syntax.

Agreed.

Maybe "Advanced SQL Commands" could also contain:

* Outer Joins
* Casts (bot AS and ::, with some explanations on why and when)

Not sure if Views and Triggers should go under Uniqe features - they are 
supported on most commercial SQL databases.

"Interfacing to the POSTGRESQL Database" could also contain more options
than PHP,
at least as references - there are much more of both established (CGI,
PyApache,mod_perl) 
and emerging (like the recent pgxml announcement) technologies for that
purpos.

Server side programming should also mention PL/Tcl 

Under which section would requirements the restrictions (db size, field
size/count, record size/count) 
or lackof them :) go?
(I recently checked Oracle8i for Linux, and it quoted 128MB RAM as
minimum and 256 
as recommended - I think we are a lot less demanding, I guess PG can
reasonably run in 16MB ?)

-----------------
Hannu