Like any programming language, the PL/pgSQL Postgres procedural language has plenty of handy control structures. Among those thankfully modern accoutrements is the humble EXCEPTION block. While not the more prevalent try/catch methodology, we can use BEGIN anywhere to start an embedded section for the same effect. Knowing this is the case, what are the costs of actually using them? Postgres is fairly streamlined, and as such, can take several shortcuts when there are no exception blocks within a chunk of PL/pgSQL.

On a higher level, Postgres has a bevy of libraries, interfaces, and clients for accessing a database instance. From language APIs to GUIs like pgAdmin, or SaaS entries like JackDB, every flavor of interaction is covered. And yet, that’s only a small part of the story. For those who dare to tread into the watery depths, there’s also the world of dark incantations that is the command-line. While most are aware of psql, the Postgres command-line client for accessing databases, there are far more creatures lurking in the black oblivion which deserve more visibility.

One way the Postgres project is subtly misleading, is that it becomes easy to forget that not all other projects are nearly as well managed. This becomes more relevant when delving into niches that lack sufficient visibility to expose the more obvious deficiencies. As much as we like Postgres, it’s not quite as popular as it could be. This makes some of the side projects infrequently used, and as a direct consequence, they can often resemble jerky automatons cobbled together out of spit and bailing wire.

There comes a day in every young database’s life that it’s time to move on. I’m sorry 9.4, but the day has come that we must say goodbye. It’s not like we haven’t had our good times. While I truly appreciate everything you’ve done for me, we must part ways. I’m far too needy, and I can’t demand so much of you in good conscience. May your future patches make you and your other suitors happy!

Ah, source control. From Subversion to git and everything in between, we all love to manage our code. The ability to quickly branch from an existing base is incredibly important to exploring and potentially abandoning divergent code paths. One often overlooked Postgres feature is the template database. At first glance, it’s just a way to ensure newly created databases contain some base functionality without having to bootstrap every time, but it’s so much more than that.