1 Why PostgreSQL matters—and why talking about mistakes does too

Welcome to PostgreSQL Mistakes and How to Avoid Them! Presumably, you got your hands on this book to learn more about PostgreSQL, and that is indeed the book’s purpose. However, it’s not a tutorial book in the traditional sense, nor is it an administration guide—there are good books already on those subjects. This book makes it a point that mistakes do happen, and they are good learning opportunities. In this chapter, we will see why PostgreSQL is important right now, how this book examines PostgreSQL-related mistakes, and why this is a worthwhile endeavor.

1.1 Why learning about PostgreSQL matters

As we mentioned before, PostgreSQL (aka Postgres) is a disruptive technology that has started unseating giant database vendors from their thrones. It is a robust and reliable feature-rich database and very extensible, and it is gaining more enterprise features with each new release. It has found wide acceptance not only in the database community but also in commercial circles, with hundreds of vendors now offering code contributions, professional support, enhanced capabilities versions, and even hosted, cloud, or database-as-a-service (DBaaS) Postgres offerings.

1.2 Why talking about PostgreSQL mistakes matters

1.3 What you will learn

1.4 Typical kinds of PostgreSQL mistakes

1.4.1 Coming with expectations from other databases

1.4.2 Misunderstanding PostgreSQL

1.4.3 Misunderstanding the documentation

1.4.4 Using relics from the SQL Standard

1.4.5 Not following best practices

1.5 How this book works

1.5.1 Mental models

1.5.2 Example mistake

1.6 Sample database: Frogge Emporium

Summary