1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:02,240 Michael: Hello and welcome to Postgres.FM, a weekly show about 2 00:00:02,240 --> 00:00:03,060 all things PostgreSQL. 3 00:00:03,280 --> 00:00:04,740 I am Michael, founder of pgMustard. 4 00:00:04,900 --> 00:00:07,380 This is my cohost Nikolay, founder of Postgres.AI. 5 00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:09,180 Hey Nikolay, how's it going? 6 00:00:09,920 --> 00:00:12,040 Nikolay: Hi Michael, everything is all right. 7 00:00:12,040 --> 00:00:12,860 How are you? 8 00:00:13,080 --> 00:00:14,360 Michael: I'm good, thank you. 9 00:00:14,440 --> 00:00:19,540 So this week it was my choice and I have picked the topic of 10 00:00:19,540 --> 00:00:23,560 Postgres online communities partly because when I was new to 11 00:00:23,560 --> 00:00:27,720 Postgres, I would have loved this kind of conversation as to if 12 00:00:27,720 --> 00:00:30,660 I've got a question, if I've got like a deeply technical question 13 00:00:30,660 --> 00:00:34,540 where should I post it or how should I post it, there's so many 14 00:00:34,540 --> 00:00:39,520 online forums communities social media sites that. I found it 15 00:00:39,520 --> 00:00:42,920 quite daunting to kind of know where were people what kind of 16 00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:46,220 things worked well in different places. That kind of thing. So 17 00:00:46,220 --> 00:00:50,380 I thought I'd bring that and see and I know we're kind of on 18 00:00:50,380 --> 00:00:52,840 Slightly different social networks or where we tend to spend 19 00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:55,740 more of our time. So I'd be really interested in your views on 20 00:00:55,740 --> 00:00:58,940 why you like the ones that you like that kind of thing as well. 21 00:00:59,960 --> 00:01:03,300 Nikolay: Yeah, well first of all we exclude offline communities, 22 00:01:03,500 --> 00:01:04,000 right? 23 00:01:04,460 --> 00:01:08,480 Yeah, and for example long ago in Russia. 24 00:01:08,620 --> 00:01:16,020 I was organizing meetups but then we had a rise in 2014 and 2015, 25 00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:18,980 2016, and then I saw decline. 26 00:01:19,180 --> 00:01:23,440 And I saw decline in the Bay Area where I moved around the same 27 00:01:23,440 --> 00:01:24,740 time before that. 28 00:01:25,460 --> 00:01:29,920 So I was visiting both places and I saw decline of this kind 29 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:34,060 of offline communities on both parts of the world and I still 30 00:01:34,060 --> 00:01:37,440 don't understand why because at the same time front-enders had 31 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:41,880 huge meetups and at some point I decided to move fully online 32 00:01:42,660 --> 00:01:47,040 all my attention and focus and activities you know last time 33 00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:49,200 I stopped going to conferences. 34 00:01:49,960 --> 00:01:54,560 So I like online, because online you can communicate asynchronously. 35 00:01:55,080 --> 00:01:56,360 This is the key, right? 36 00:01:56,820 --> 00:02:02,560 You can think and follow up and so on, And you can do it with 37 00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:03,180 your convenience. 38 00:02:03,180 --> 00:02:07,080 Of course, we lack a lot of stuff online, but for our work online 39 00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:10,440 is great because you can share code, pictures, everything, discussing. 40 00:02:11,260 --> 00:02:14,060 Actually, some online formats are not like that. 41 00:02:14,060 --> 00:02:15,060 For example, podcast. 42 00:02:15,060 --> 00:02:22,100 And I know we have our own small community of permanent listeners 43 00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:25,460 and I'm thankful to the fact it's growing. 44 00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:30,800 It's really good to hear feedback, to see feedback, to see from 45 00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:35,080 customers mentioning that they constantly Listen to our podcast. 46 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:35,820 That's great. 47 00:02:35,820 --> 00:02:36,660 It feels great. 48 00:02:36,660 --> 00:02:38,480 But I still I agree with you. 49 00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:43,580 It's like fragmented a lot of various places Right. 50 00:02:43,940 --> 00:02:46,420 There's no there's no big central place. 51 00:02:46,780 --> 00:02:50,240 There are quite big places, right, but there's no single... 52 00:02:50,900 --> 00:02:53,860 Michael: Well, maybe we should start there, because on the... 53 00:02:53,860 --> 00:02:57,500 I thought I'd go to the PostgreSQL.org site, and there's a... 54 00:02:57,500 --> 00:03:02,380 1 of the top headers is community, and that links to mailing 55 00:03:02,380 --> 00:03:02,880 lists... 56 00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:05,340 Nikolay: Like a single community, right? 57 00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:07,060 Michael: I guess so, yeah. 58 00:03:07,060 --> 00:03:08,720 I think it's just community with a Y. 59 00:03:08,720 --> 00:03:10,140 Yeah, so 1 community. 60 00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,820 But it links to mailing lists, which I think probably would count 61 00:03:14,820 --> 00:03:16,000 as the big hub. 62 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:21,360 Like if you want to say that like the official online community 63 00:03:21,500 --> 00:03:23,900 of Postgres is probably the mailing lists. 64 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:25,580 Nikolay: Yeah mailing lists and IRC. 65 00:03:25,840 --> 00:03:26,820 Michael: I don't remember what's 66 00:03:26,820 --> 00:03:27,660 the other 1. 67 00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:29,480 Nikolay: IRC is like, ooh. 68 00:03:30,120 --> 00:03:36,240 And I know they say community like single, single community but 69 00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:38,860 I don't feel I belong to this community. 70 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:40,840 We discussed it a few times in the past. 71 00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:45,040 I think there is a bigger community and how I see it, it's different 72 00:03:45,040 --> 00:03:48,180 from the definition of this so-called official community, right? 73 00:03:49,020 --> 00:03:52,740 So but you say communities, so many, many of them, right? 74 00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:55,760 I see, I'm closer to you in this understanding. 75 00:03:55,840 --> 00:03:59,440 So there are many groups and they are interconnected. 76 00:04:00,980 --> 00:04:05,080 And the single community, it's like, it's good there is such 77 00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:08,100 concept, but it's against open-source idea. 78 00:04:08,320 --> 00:04:11,460 Because open-source idea, there should be many, many, many, many, 79 00:04:11,460 --> 00:04:13,980 many things around, right? 80 00:04:15,260 --> 00:04:17,620 So, mailing list I don't like. 81 00:04:18,340 --> 00:04:20,460 IRC I don't almost touch. 82 00:04:20,540 --> 00:04:24,000 It means this also like this is just form, but there is also 83 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:26,100 content deviation, right? 84 00:04:26,580 --> 00:04:29,840 And there are many other places where people live. 85 00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:34,020 And I remember times, now it's much less, but I remember times 86 00:04:34,020 --> 00:04:38,040 when something was discussed somewhere and always some people 87 00:04:38,400 --> 00:04:43,180 obviously feeling belonging to the main community, they started 88 00:04:43,180 --> 00:04:45,800 saying, oh, it's not the right place to discuss things. 89 00:04:46,060 --> 00:04:47,820 You should go to mailing list. 90 00:04:48,340 --> 00:04:49,780 My reaction is... 91 00:04:51,340 --> 00:04:51,820 Yeah. 92 00:04:51,820 --> 00:04:57,040 Obviously if I react as I want to react you will cut this out. 93 00:04:58,660 --> 00:05:03,120 So I won't react publicly but I guess our listeners can guess 94 00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:03,880 my reaction. 95 00:05:04,060 --> 00:05:07,360 If I want to be on Twitter or on Telegram or Slack, I want to 96 00:05:07,360 --> 00:05:07,760 be there. 97 00:05:07,760 --> 00:05:08,500 That's it. 98 00:05:08,940 --> 00:05:12,600 Michael: I guess it's a bit about like development processes. 99 00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:16,100 So when I've, I, I've got a background of being a product manager 100 00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:20,280 and part of your job as being a product manager is listening 101 00:05:20,280 --> 00:05:23,760 to your customers, listening to what people think of your software. 102 00:05:24,220 --> 00:05:27,480 And you can encourage them to use the official forums, maybe 103 00:05:27,480 --> 00:05:30,980 your product set has an official way of giving you feedback. 104 00:05:31,220 --> 00:05:34,000 But if you want the truth of what people really think of your 105 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:38,320 software, you need to make sure you're also on social media and 106 00:05:38,680 --> 00:05:41,940 looking at mentions of your brand wherever people are talking 107 00:05:41,940 --> 00:05:45,040 about it, not just via your official thing. 108 00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:48,980 So I think I've seen some of those conversations and I understand 109 00:05:49,040 --> 00:05:53,000 what probably people, whether they say it in a nice way or not, 110 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:55,760 what they're probably trying to say is if you want the maximum 111 00:05:55,760 --> 00:05:59,340 chance of your feedback being listened to constructively and 112 00:05:59,340 --> 00:06:02,800 actually some improvements coming off the back of it, you're 113 00:06:02,800 --> 00:06:06,340 best off reporting it in the official channels, like the official 114 00:06:06,340 --> 00:06:06,840 places. 115 00:06:07,540 --> 00:06:11,820 But from the flip side, I've definitely seen a lot of people 116 00:06:11,820 --> 00:06:15,520 that have got very high influence in the Postgres development 117 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:21,700 circles hanging out on Twitter, in IRC, in like on LinkedIn, 118 00:06:21,720 --> 00:06:25,120 wherever people are talking about Postgres, you know, their product, 119 00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:28,140 and doing that product management kind of role of listening to 120 00:06:28,140 --> 00:06:30,980 what issues people are having, listening to what suggestions 121 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:31,400 people have. 122 00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:36,160 So while some in the community or communities might encourage 123 00:06:36,420 --> 00:06:39,480 the more constructive places to have that conversation, there 124 00:06:39,480 --> 00:06:43,380 are also people listening and interacting in the, everywhere 125 00:06:43,380 --> 00:06:44,120 else as well. 126 00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:46,180 So I can see both sides. 127 00:06:46,320 --> 00:06:49,800 Nikolay: Yeah, but there are no Postgres managers in this open-source 128 00:06:49,860 --> 00:06:50,360 project. 129 00:06:50,440 --> 00:06:56,440 Yeah, so if some hacker listens to some in some place and just 130 00:06:56,440 --> 00:06:58,020 picks up the idea that's great. 131 00:06:58,380 --> 00:06:58,880 Michael: Exactly. 132 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:02,520 Nikolay: Yeah, but it's It's like just random, right? 133 00:07:03,040 --> 00:07:06,040 Michael: Well, I think random's a bit, well yeah, I see what 134 00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:06,680 you mean. 135 00:07:07,540 --> 00:07:11,940 It relies a lot on those individual hackers, but that's Postgres 136 00:07:11,940 --> 00:07:12,440 development. 137 00:07:12,740 --> 00:07:15,000 Postgres development, there's no roadmap. 138 00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:18,840 There's no, like, We all rely on individual hackers to do various 139 00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:19,280 things. 140 00:07:19,280 --> 00:07:19,780 Nikolay: Yeah. 141 00:07:20,060 --> 00:07:22,640 Yeah, and for matters I don't like email. 142 00:07:22,640 --> 00:07:26,580 I don't like IRC So what if I prefer for example Twitter and 143 00:07:26,580 --> 00:07:29,640 I keep calling it Twitter and I don't like Elon Musk, you know 144 00:07:29,640 --> 00:07:30,720 Like and so on. 145 00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:34,780 Yeah, but I just it's just comfort zone and you mentioned 146 00:07:34,780 --> 00:07:37,200 Blue Sky before we decided. 147 00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:37,840 Michael: Oh, yeah. 148 00:07:38,240 --> 00:07:40,100 Nikolay: So it's like Twitter. 149 00:07:40,520 --> 00:07:41,020 Yeah. 150 00:07:41,640 --> 00:07:44,860 Michael: So I thought I'd bring this conversation up now because 151 00:07:45,060 --> 00:07:49,940 I saw a lot of people a lot of technical folks that I follow 152 00:07:50,280 --> 00:07:55,320 on Twitter on Mastodon I'm quite I'm probably the most active 153 00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:58,740 the place I read the most is on Mastodon because I'm seeing some 154 00:07:58,740 --> 00:08:01,780 really good technical conversations happening there a lot of 155 00:08:01,780 --> 00:08:05,820 those people are checking out Blue Sky this week last week it 156 00:08:05,820 --> 00:08:08,760 feels like a not necessarily people are switching to it but a 157 00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:11,980 lot of people seem to be checking it out this week so they've 158 00:08:11,980 --> 00:08:15,680 gone from like I think something like 10 million users to about 159 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:17,200 15 million users in a week. 160 00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:17,700 Overall. 161 00:08:18,840 --> 00:08:19,340 Total. 162 00:08:19,400 --> 00:08:20,660 So it's still tiny. 163 00:08:21,180 --> 00:08:23,560 Nikolay: So who knows how many of them use Postgres? 164 00:08:23,560 --> 00:08:24,560 Maybe just a few. 165 00:08:25,200 --> 00:08:27,660 Michael: What all I mean is more that like it's still tiny. 166 00:08:27,660 --> 00:08:29,760 I didn't want this conversation to be about that. 167 00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:32,240 But I thought, oh, it's actually a good time to discuss where 168 00:08:32,240 --> 00:08:34,640 are the good conversations happening around post because if you 169 00:08:34,640 --> 00:08:37,600 want to keep in the loop of what's happening are you best off 170 00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:41,400 having profiles like in which ones which site should you be checking 171 00:08:41,400 --> 00:08:43,820 like these are the kind of questions I had at the beginning and 172 00:08:43,820 --> 00:08:45,680 kind of just had to figure it all out myself. 173 00:08:46,160 --> 00:08:49,160 Nikolay: Yeah I think a lot of good conversations are happening 174 00:08:49,160 --> 00:08:51,320 on both Twitter and LinkedIn. 175 00:08:51,320 --> 00:08:54,560 It's just there is a critical mass there and I just feel very 176 00:08:54,560 --> 00:08:57,040 comfortable discussing something on Twitter. 177 00:08:57,040 --> 00:09:01,180 And I know many, many, many hackers also and just very experienced 178 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:05,200 users, not only from this Postgres community, like from Capital 179 00:09:05,460 --> 00:09:10,020 C, but also from like back-end engineering in general, with good 180 00:09:10,020 --> 00:09:12,760 experience of Postgres and good problems they observe. 181 00:09:13,140 --> 00:09:17,460 They are there and just sharing sometimes ideas. 182 00:09:18,100 --> 00:09:22,980 It's super, like, I feel really comfortable just on Twitter. 183 00:09:23,300 --> 00:09:25,020 And I know Slack is huge. 184 00:09:26,780 --> 00:09:27,920 It's an official, right? 185 00:09:27,920 --> 00:09:31,840 But it's Slack, I think, like, how many, more than 10,000 people 186 00:09:31,840 --> 00:09:36,660 there just for Postgres and special Slack space, right? 187 00:09:36,660 --> 00:09:38,900 And work space, how is it called? 188 00:09:39,340 --> 00:09:42,940 And yeah, many, many discussions and troubleshooting sessions 189 00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:44,020 are happening right there. 190 00:09:44,020 --> 00:09:47,020 I think it's already kind of a good alternative to IRC. 191 00:09:47,840 --> 00:09:48,340 Michael: Yeah, 192 00:09:48,580 --> 00:09:51,440 I would say so I have I definitely am more positive 193 00:09:51,440 --> 00:09:53,760 about the mailing lists and IRC than you are. 194 00:09:53,760 --> 00:09:57,880 I do find email really helpful and I still think it's incredible 195 00:09:58,140 --> 00:10:01,080 the quality of support you can get on both of those. 196 00:10:01,080 --> 00:10:05,460 So as a user, not necessarily as like a, so as a hacker, you 197 00:10:05,460 --> 00:10:09,740 have to use the mailing list, like it's the the way of communicating. 198 00:10:10,680 --> 00:10:14,880 But the other mailing lists, the non-hackers ones, like general, 199 00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:20,640 performance, a few others, I find it amazing that you can email 200 00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:24,800 the performance mailing list and probably within a day, maybe 201 00:10:24,800 --> 00:10:28,760 within a few days, you're hearing back from very, very experienced 202 00:10:28,780 --> 00:10:33,300 Postgres hackers about your specific performance question and 203 00:10:33,900 --> 00:10:37,080 it helps if you've done some background and given them really 204 00:10:37,080 --> 00:10:39,060 good information to go on. 205 00:10:39,060 --> 00:10:42,260 But even the people that don't do that get great advice or at 206 00:10:42,260 --> 00:10:45,280 least encouraged to find out the things they need to be able 207 00:10:45,280 --> 00:10:46,080 to be helped. 208 00:10:46,260 --> 00:10:48,020 Which is unbelievable. 209 00:10:49,020 --> 00:10:50,360 When you consider what you... 210 00:10:50,460 --> 00:10:51,640 That's free support. 211 00:10:52,300 --> 00:10:53,400 I think that's incredible. 212 00:10:53,860 --> 00:10:57,500 And then IRC is a similar standard it's not threaded I love the 213 00:10:57,500 --> 00:11:00,900 emails threaded and asynchronous IRC is like the opposite It's 214 00:11:00,900 --> 00:11:03,360 not threaded and it's very very synchronous 215 00:11:03,740 --> 00:11:04,240 Nikolay: Mm-hmm 216 00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:07,180 Michael: So I actually hadn't I've when I first joined Postgres 217 00:11:07,180 --> 00:11:09,820 because of I suspect this community site I spent quite a lot 218 00:11:09,820 --> 00:11:13,540 of time logged into IRC, you know Watching the conversations 219 00:11:13,580 --> 00:11:16,440 as they were happening and asking the odd question myself and 220 00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:20,080 I did learn a lot there are some extremely experienced people 221 00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:23,040 on that that are still very active and still help people but 222 00:11:23,040 --> 00:11:28,040 to give you some numbers there's about 800 people live in the 223 00:11:28,040 --> 00:11:30,740 PostgreSQL IRC channel. 224 00:11:30,740 --> 00:11:31,740 Nikolay: How many people? 225 00:11:32,580 --> 00:11:38,940 Michael: 800 or 783 right this minute and There's 24,000 in 226 00:11:38,940 --> 00:11:41,700 the PostgreSQL Slack, the Postgres team Slack 227 00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:48,280 Nikolay: I'm checking Russian speaking Postgres Telegram and 228 00:11:48,420 --> 00:11:52,800 it has more than 13,000 members right now and more than 5,000 229 00:11:53,100 --> 00:11:53,600 online. 230 00:11:55,520 --> 00:11:59,720 But quality of discussions there, I cannot stay there for more 231 00:11:59,720 --> 00:12:03,360 than 10 seconds because it's like... 232 00:12:05,220 --> 00:12:07,280 Michael: As in is it beginner level questions? 233 00:12:07,280 --> 00:12:08,560 Nikolay: It's very beginner a lot. 234 00:12:08,560 --> 00:12:11,360 Like, like it's like huge wave of beginners. 235 00:12:11,520 --> 00:12:15,080 And they have sometimes emotional discussions, not quality, like, 236 00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:19,820 like sometimes collapsing, like clashing at each other and so 237 00:12:19,820 --> 00:12:20,280 on. 238 00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:25,240 And I can check also English speaking Telegram groups, which 239 00:12:25,240 --> 00:12:28,700 have like a couple of thousand people, maybe less. 240 00:12:28,700 --> 00:12:29,200 Yeah. 241 00:12:29,720 --> 00:12:31,000 I actually, I created 1. 242 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:36,080 It's, it has more than 2000 members, 165 online, and there is 243 00:12:36,080 --> 00:12:40,120 an alternative 1, almost 3000 members, 300 online. 244 00:12:41,140 --> 00:12:45,060 And I don't know about the other, the second 1, but that 1 I 245 00:12:45,060 --> 00:12:48,360 created, well, it also sometimes not good quality. 246 00:12:48,420 --> 00:12:52,080 It's better quality than Russian speaking, but when people share 247 00:12:52,080 --> 00:12:56,440 screenshots, with poor, like, you cannot understand what's written 248 00:12:56,440 --> 00:12:56,660 there. 249 00:12:56,660 --> 00:12:57,540 And it's terminal. 250 00:12:57,540 --> 00:13:01,100 So like, it's just text, but there's screenshot on or even not 251 00:13:01,100 --> 00:13:03,740 screenshot a picture made from phone. 252 00:13:04,460 --> 00:13:10,840 Yeah, it's just, And I just wait, maybe someday we will create, 253 00:13:10,840 --> 00:13:15,560 you know, GPT API has it, like we can understand automatically 254 00:13:15,860 --> 00:13:18,780 and just, you know, transform to text from the picture. 255 00:13:18,900 --> 00:13:22,260 Someday we will probably have such bot, you know. 256 00:13:22,660 --> 00:13:25,940 Sometimes really interesting discussions, but often no. 257 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:26,720 Often no. 258 00:13:26,720 --> 00:13:29,680 So I visit this group maybe like once a week. 259 00:13:30,340 --> 00:13:30,840 Michael: Yeah. 260 00:13:30,920 --> 00:13:35,720 So I personally avoid though, I find these huge channels that 261 00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:37,780 are not threaded Impossible. 262 00:13:38,100 --> 00:13:41,940 Nikolay: Well telegram was like kind of threaded you can it's 263 00:13:41,940 --> 00:13:43,080 not it's not convenient. 264 00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:44,680 It's not like in Slack, right? 265 00:13:45,140 --> 00:13:48,980 Michael: In Slack, it's great that I actually find the Postgres 266 00:13:49,200 --> 00:13:52,040 Slack, even though it's 24,000 members, there's probably only 267 00:13:52,040 --> 00:13:54,620 about, at least in the general channel, there's probably only 268 00:13:54,620 --> 00:13:57,320 5 or 6 new conversations per day. 269 00:13:57,400 --> 00:14:00,260 And people have gotten into a really good habit of replying to 270 00:14:00,260 --> 00:14:01,520 those in threads. 271 00:14:01,860 --> 00:14:04,540 So if you're interested in a thread, you can post in it or you 272 00:14:04,540 --> 00:14:06,420 can get notified of new replies. 273 00:14:06,820 --> 00:14:08,860 Most people are familiar with how Slack works. 274 00:14:08,860 --> 00:14:12,320 But it means that if you're not interested in a part of a conversation, 275 00:14:12,800 --> 00:14:14,380 you can not follow it. 276 00:14:14,380 --> 00:14:18,080 Whereas in Telegram, or if you're in 1 of these non threaded 277 00:14:18,080 --> 00:14:20,920 environments You can't avoid it. 278 00:14:20,920 --> 00:14:24,400 You could all you can do is log out for a while, you know You 279 00:14:24,400 --> 00:14:27,980 know, just not check it for a while scroll for a while And so 280 00:14:27,980 --> 00:14:31,620 I yeah, I find that is quite difficult But as a imagine you're 281 00:14:31,620 --> 00:14:33,120 Nikolay: a sample email, right? 282 00:14:33,220 --> 00:14:34,840 Well email has topics. 283 00:14:34,860 --> 00:14:37,240 I mean like there are threats obviously, right? 284 00:14:37,240 --> 00:14:41,800 But yeah, but sometimes there's huge discussion and it's hard 285 00:14:41,800 --> 00:14:47,380 to To there should be some sub threads right some tree But there 286 00:14:47,380 --> 00:14:48,640 is no such thing there 287 00:14:49,360 --> 00:14:52,200 Michael: Yeah, yeah So yeah, so I'm definitely pros and cons 288 00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:54,520 But it's really I think it's good that there are places that 289 00:14:54,520 --> 00:14:57,140 beginners can go to ask questions and get help. 290 00:14:57,340 --> 00:14:59,760 It's remarkable that people are willing to help them, but I've 291 00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:03,380 got a huge amount of respect for the people that do have the 292 00:15:03,380 --> 00:15:04,300 patience for those conversations. 293 00:15:04,300 --> 00:15:04,940 Nikolay: I agree. 294 00:15:04,940 --> 00:15:07,080 I see people with huge experience. 295 00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:10,600 I know those people and they're still there like dealing with 296 00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:12,320 this storm of new people. 297 00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:16,260 We're asking, well, it's just, you know, like some people enjoy 298 00:15:16,260 --> 00:15:19,100 it helping others and I can understand, I can relate. 299 00:15:19,280 --> 00:15:22,700 I did it also in the past, on Stack Overflow, for example, right? 300 00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:24,100 Another place where... 301 00:15:24,140 --> 00:15:25,040 Michael: Another great place. 302 00:15:25,040 --> 00:15:27,880 Nikolay: Another additional community, right? 303 00:15:28,380 --> 00:15:31,660 And if you just like helping people, it's great. 304 00:15:31,660 --> 00:15:34,020 Yeah, there is critical mass for sure. 305 00:15:35,140 --> 00:15:38,360 And yeah, there are sometimes good discussions even if there 306 00:15:38,360 --> 00:15:40,320 are many many many many new users 307 00:15:40,920 --> 00:15:44,000 Michael: yeah I actually think I wanted to give Stack Overflow 308 00:15:44,340 --> 00:15:47,700 or at least Stack Exchange there's a dba.stackexchange.com as well 309 00:15:47,700 --> 00:15:51,220 it's great and Reddit I think I want to put in a similar category 310 00:15:51,220 --> 00:15:57,100 because I think they surface answers quite well. 311 00:15:57,340 --> 00:15:59,640 So they're quite good at showing up in search results. 312 00:16:00,060 --> 00:16:03,680 So if people are using a search engine to ask their basic beginner 313 00:16:03,680 --> 00:16:06,920 question, there's a decent chance they'll come across a Stack Overflow 314 00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:10,840 post or a Reddit post increasingly that has a good discussion 315 00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:12,140 already on the topic. 316 00:16:12,140 --> 00:16:15,060 And they maybe then don't have to ask the exact same question 317 00:16:15,060 --> 00:16:19,940 again via Telegram or Slack, which don't have as good search, 318 00:16:20,080 --> 00:16:22,320 or at least they don't have long histories. 319 00:16:22,680 --> 00:16:25,090 Well, actually, maybe Telegram does, but people don't seem to 320 00:16:25,090 --> 00:16:26,540 use it. 321 00:16:26,540 --> 00:16:28,860 Nikolay: Yeah, you know, I'm checking Telegram right now. 322 00:16:28,860 --> 00:16:34,080 And actually, last many days, I don't see these pictures of console 323 00:16:35,020 --> 00:16:39,640 made on phone and we're quite good discussions and I see people 324 00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:40,380 use threads. 325 00:16:41,320 --> 00:16:45,160 Telegram has like kind of virtual threads it's still like flat 326 00:16:45,160 --> 00:16:50,140 but you can open specific discussion if people use reply you 327 00:16:50,140 --> 00:16:55,740 can see only like part of it kind of thread but but not like 328 00:16:56,640 --> 00:17:02,040 visually it's not there right so yeah and I agree with you on 329 00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:03,300 Stack Overflow points. 330 00:17:03,580 --> 00:17:07,740 I cannot agree on Reddit, maybe I just have not a lot of experience 331 00:17:08,040 --> 00:17:09,560 hanging out there. 332 00:17:09,860 --> 00:17:11,780 What about Hacker News? 333 00:17:12,070 --> 00:17:15,060 Michael: Just to quickly, oh yeah, let's get to Hacker News. 334 00:17:15,060 --> 00:17:19,340 I think Reddit is surprisingly good. 335 00:17:19,340 --> 00:17:21,220 Like I think it's the PostgreSQL Reddit. 336 00:17:21,220 --> 00:17:23,860 I'm not talking about Reddit generally, but the PostgreSQL subreddit 337 00:17:23,940 --> 00:17:24,440 specifically. 338 00:17:25,080 --> 00:17:28,060 There must be some people, and I've set this up recently as well, 339 00:17:28,780 --> 00:17:31,720 that subscribe to the RSS feed of new posts to Reddit. 340 00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:35,280 Again there's probably only something in the region of 5 to 10 341 00:17:35,320 --> 00:17:39,440 new posts per day to the Reddit and some of that is people sharing 342 00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:42,740 blog posts and you know promoting things that they've written 343 00:17:42,740 --> 00:17:45,020 or they've found good posts from other people. 344 00:17:45,940 --> 00:17:49,440 But a lot of it is beginner level questions and there are some 345 00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:53,010 people again some of the same people I'll give definitely people 346 00:17:53,010 --> 00:17:56,580 like I see depression pretty much all of these helping people 347 00:17:56,580 --> 00:18:00,880 out and I that guy has such good patience and so Helpful to people 348 00:18:01,240 --> 00:18:04,740 but people like Sean Thomas in the Discord, there's a Discord 349 00:18:04,740 --> 00:18:07,880 as well that has a very similar beginner friendly vibe. 350 00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:12,720 David Johnson, I'm sure there's tons of people that we could 351 00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:17,060 give shoutouts out to, but even on the Reddit people are replying 352 00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:22,860 same day often within an hour of the post with very helpful stuff. 353 00:18:24,120 --> 00:18:29,380 So it's surprisingly synchronous for an asynchronous channel, 354 00:18:29,380 --> 00:18:32,280 a bit like the email thread, a bit like the mailing list, and 355 00:18:32,280 --> 00:18:33,460 a bit like Stack Overflow. 356 00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:35,740 You know, you can get an answer really quickly for something 357 00:18:35,740 --> 00:18:37,500 that's designed to be asynchronous. 358 00:18:38,420 --> 00:18:43,080 And then I think they're doing a better and better job of surfacing 359 00:18:43,080 --> 00:18:45,800 those questions to people asking the same via Google. 360 00:18:46,020 --> 00:18:48,780 So if you're asking the same question someone asked 2 years ago, 361 00:18:48,780 --> 00:18:51,300 there's a really good chance you'll still find it by the Reddit. 362 00:18:51,300 --> 00:18:52,960 Whereas I don't think that's true. 363 00:18:52,960 --> 00:18:57,180 Like on Slack, for example, the history is invisible after a 364 00:18:57,180 --> 00:18:58,400 certain number of messages. 365 00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:02,680 Nikolay: 30 days if it's not paid, of course, for 23,000 people 366 00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:03,560 it's not paid. 367 00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:06,040 Because it would cost something. 368 00:19:06,260 --> 00:19:09,360 Michael: To give you an idea of volume, in terms of just numbers, 369 00:19:09,520 --> 00:19:13,880 there's 47,000 people that have joined the PostgreSQL subreddit. 370 00:19:15,020 --> 00:19:15,520 47,000! 371 00:19:16,020 --> 00:19:17,860 Nikolay: Over many years, right? 372 00:19:17,860 --> 00:19:19,340 Michael: Over many years, yeah. 373 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:22,660 Nikolay: Well, it's super easy to join there, because 374 00:19:22,660 --> 00:19:26,620 it's not like in Slack, you need to pass through some gateways. 375 00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:30,560 There is just 1 button, follow it, that's it. 376 00:19:30,560 --> 00:19:33,400 Michael: The Slack 1 is not necessarily easy to find the invitation 377 00:19:33,540 --> 00:19:35,800 link so I'll post that in the show notes. 378 00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:37,080 Nikolay: Yeah, yeah. 379 00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:41,440 And what about, again, what about Hacker News and what about 380 00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:46,360 maybe Meta threads or some new stuff, some new places? 381 00:19:47,660 --> 00:19:50,800 Michael: Well, I actually don't even have an I don't have an 382 00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:53,320 account on Metas threads I saw a couple 383 00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:55,640 Nikolay: of Postgres folks there, but not active. 384 00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:59,900 I think it's not for Postgres yet And who knows what there are 385 00:19:59,900 --> 00:20:03,120 many discussions there and they push all the time notifying through 386 00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:07,080 Instagram or maybe through Facebook I don't know I use Instagram 387 00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:11,200 for a family picture so I see notifications from thread about 388 00:20:11,200 --> 00:20:14,280 different topics not about Postgres yet 389 00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:18,440 Michael: We're probably the wrong generation for that, but I 390 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:22,340 definitely only use Instagram for personal stuff rather than 391 00:20:22,340 --> 00:20:23,420 for professional things. 392 00:20:23,420 --> 00:20:24,440 Nikolay: What about Hacker News? 393 00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:28,440 It's not a social network, it's just a single place with random 394 00:20:28,440 --> 00:20:28,940 topics. 395 00:20:29,860 --> 00:20:33,400 Postgres is on the front page, Postgres-related topics are very 396 00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:34,540 often on the front page. 397 00:20:35,380 --> 00:20:40,020 Michael: I think Hacker News is a good place for seeing things 398 00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:45,000 that are happening in the tech space in general, but if you relied 399 00:20:45,060 --> 00:20:49,640 only on Hacker News for your news around Postgres, I think you'd 400 00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:51,140 be missing out on a bunch. 401 00:20:51,180 --> 00:20:54,060 I think only certain types of topics do well. 402 00:20:54,060 --> 00:20:58,260 They have to be, I don't know quite how to define what it is. 403 00:20:58,260 --> 00:21:02,920 It seems to be a certain depth of technical article does really 404 00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:04,980 well on there, but not too niche. 405 00:21:05,540 --> 00:21:12,040 And also, I think there's maybe like a dev, it's very dev focused 406 00:21:12,040 --> 00:21:16,760 rather than DBA, like it feels very back end or full stack developer 407 00:21:16,980 --> 00:21:17,480 crowd. 408 00:21:18,540 --> 00:21:19,140 And There's 409 00:21:19,140 --> 00:21:21,420 Nikolay: many more of such people around, right? 410 00:21:21,420 --> 00:21:25,860 So in general, number of back-end engineers is much, many more 411 00:21:25,860 --> 00:21:27,460 than like database engineers. 412 00:21:29,540 --> 00:21:30,260 For example, 413 00:21:31,020 --> 00:21:33,180 Michael: There can be extremely good conversation. 414 00:21:33,340 --> 00:21:36,760 I know it gets a bad reputation for the quality of conversation 415 00:21:36,860 --> 00:21:40,380 on this in some circles, but sometimes I come across really good 416 00:21:40,380 --> 00:21:41,620 conversations there. 417 00:21:41,980 --> 00:21:44,700 And sometimes it's people that really know their stuff from the 418 00:21:44,700 --> 00:21:47,920 database world popping into Hacker News to help, you know, to 419 00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:51,420 answer some questions or to comment on some things. 420 00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:54,740 Nikolay: Yeah, and this is a place where you intersect with other 421 00:21:54,900 --> 00:21:56,820 very different communities. 422 00:21:58,140 --> 00:22:01,800 Because you can see people who hate Postgres, they come in to 423 00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:02,300 comment. 424 00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:06,900 Unlike, I think they don't go to Postgres Slack to comment how 425 00:22:06,900 --> 00:22:08,160 they hate Postgres, right? 426 00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:09,260 That's a good point. 427 00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:09,760 They are on Hacker News. 428 00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:13,320 Even on Reddit, if you don't like, you don't follow, so you don't 429 00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:13,780 participate. 430 00:22:13,780 --> 00:22:16,880 But on Hacker News, if some topic Postgres related is on front 431 00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:17,380 page. 432 00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:21,480 Obviously some people will comment with some hate speech a little 433 00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:23,460 bit, but not often, not often. 434 00:22:23,460 --> 00:22:28,440 But in general, obviously, like people love Postgres in general. 435 00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:30,540 This is for true, like for Sure. 436 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:35,740 But sometimes there are useful grains in this, not hateful speech, 437 00:22:35,740 --> 00:22:37,220 but you know, like skepticism. 438 00:22:37,420 --> 00:22:43,180 And sometimes you hear people struggle with MVCC design and bloat 439 00:22:43,180 --> 00:22:43,820 or something. 440 00:22:43,820 --> 00:22:45,180 They just like complain. 441 00:22:45,300 --> 00:22:48,980 And these people are quite good, educated and good engineers. 442 00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:56,180 So it's like, Hacker News is a place where you can hear people 443 00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:59,540 struggling with some issues Postgres still has. 444 00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:02,160 And this cannot be ignored, right? 445 00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:06,160 So this is a place where people express in very technical, very 446 00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:09,300 good technical form, what's the problem. 447 00:23:09,800 --> 00:23:13,540 Michael: Yeah, and I would add Twitter to that as well as a place 448 00:23:13,580 --> 00:23:14,120 where you 449 00:23:14,120 --> 00:23:15,245 Nikolay: can get that. 450 00:23:15,245 --> 00:23:15,620 Michael: Intersection. 451 00:23:15,620 --> 00:23:16,120 Exactly. 452 00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:18,740 Nikolay: LinkedIn, LinkedIn as well. 453 00:23:19,360 --> 00:23:19,860 LinkedIn. 454 00:23:19,980 --> 00:23:23,000 Michael: Yes, Although I've seen less of it on LinkedIn for some 455 00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:23,500 reason. 456 00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:26,680 I don't see that much negativity about Postgres on LinkedIn for 457 00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:27,380 some reason. 458 00:23:27,660 --> 00:23:29,680 Maybe just the people I'm connected to. 459 00:23:30,100 --> 00:23:33,260 Nikolay: Maybe LinkedIn just deprioritize negative stuff and 460 00:23:33,260 --> 00:23:36,160 just Prioritize positive stuff right? 461 00:23:36,420 --> 00:23:40,360 People just congratulate with every step in career all the time. 462 00:23:40,360 --> 00:23:42,020 This is what LinkedIn is, right? 463 00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:44,600 What a great post. 464 00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:46,100 Everything's so good. 465 00:23:46,100 --> 00:23:48,700 This is just corporate style, you know 466 00:23:49,660 --> 00:23:51,820 Michael: But true, it is more positive stuff, isn't it? 467 00:23:51,820 --> 00:23:52,920 That is a good point 468 00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:57,160 Nikolay: yeah, but I like to find problems and think about them, 469 00:23:57,280 --> 00:23:58,240 so I 470 00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:02,820 Michael: Think Most of these communities are not great for self-promotion, 471 00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:07,760 but LinkedIn is 1 where promoting your own stuff is encouraged 472 00:24:08,260 --> 00:24:10,820 and is very much part of the culture. 473 00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:14,600 So I actually think that might be worth knowing. 474 00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:18,900 If you're looking to be able to promote your own blog posts or 475 00:24:18,900 --> 00:24:21,740 your own videos and things, that is a 476 00:24:21,740 --> 00:24:23,040 Nikolay: great way to do that. 477 00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:26,780 To build a reputation as an expert, LinkedIn I think is a good 478 00:24:26,780 --> 00:24:29,340 way to gather attention. 479 00:24:30,300 --> 00:24:32,540 Yeah, true. 480 00:24:33,340 --> 00:24:35,040 Share ideas, collect feedback. 481 00:24:36,100 --> 00:24:39,100 But I would expect true feedback not on LinkedIn. 482 00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:40,620 On Twitter maybe. 483 00:24:41,380 --> 00:24:43,660 Because on LinkedIn, I don't know. 484 00:24:43,660 --> 00:24:46,360 Maybe just like some overall impression. 485 00:24:47,500 --> 00:24:49,100 But yeah, what else? 486 00:24:49,900 --> 00:24:52,160 There are sometimes unexpected communities. 487 00:24:52,900 --> 00:24:54,060 I mean, discussions. 488 00:24:54,620 --> 00:24:59,740 For example, remember we discussed limitations of ANALYZE single-threaded 489 00:24:59,960 --> 00:25:03,380 and how to run it multiple threads and I created how to it's 490 00:25:03,380 --> 00:25:06,780 still, this merge request on GitLab is still not merged. 491 00:25:07,940 --> 00:25:12,380 Right, because suddenly we started having discussions there. 492 00:25:13,260 --> 00:25:18,740 And a couple of folks chimed in and started sharing experiences. 493 00:25:20,860 --> 00:25:25,320 It's interesting because new things appeared and I explored new 494 00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:25,760 things. 495 00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:32,420 For example, this post-upgrade ANALYZE of partition tables turned 496 00:25:32,420 --> 00:25:39,000 out neither vacuumdb nor autovacuum take care about root partition 497 00:25:39,060 --> 00:25:39,560 tables. 498 00:25:40,120 --> 00:25:42,340 They don't update statistics at all. 499 00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,880 If you run it manually, it's updated both for individual partitions 500 00:25:46,120 --> 00:25:47,920 and main, like, root table. 501 00:25:48,260 --> 00:25:51,640 But vacuumdb doesn't do it, and it means post-upgrade. 502 00:25:52,180 --> 00:25:55,860 If you do need the statistics, you need to, additionally to vacuumdb, 503 00:25:55,920 --> 00:26:01,280 you need additional single-threaded ANALYZE on partitioned tables. 504 00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,280 It's kind of interesting, right? 505 00:26:03,420 --> 00:26:06,600 And there's no ANALYZE only, so if you run on partitioned tables, 506 00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,840 it will scan also partitions. 507 00:26:09,720 --> 00:26:13,300 So it's like some rabbit hole I didn't expect at all. 508 00:26:13,620 --> 00:26:16,320 And these discussions are happening still in Merge Request, you 509 00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:16,820 know? 510 00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:18,040 And they are threaded. 511 00:26:18,940 --> 00:26:23,860 It's like commenting particular piece of my write-up, it's definitely 512 00:26:23,860 --> 00:26:25,840 threaded on GitHub and on GitLab. 513 00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:26,780 It's very convenient. 514 00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:30,120 Michael: Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that that is happening 515 00:26:30,120 --> 00:26:35,820 there because it's great for sharing code and for being specific 516 00:26:36,020 --> 00:26:40,160 and you can write a really long if you if your comment is best 517 00:26:40,460 --> 00:26:44,620 communicated as a very long piece of writing that's easy on Twitter 518 00:26:44,620 --> 00:26:48,420 that's trickier is You don't have code formatting and there's 519 00:26:48,420 --> 00:26:52,380 like a few subtleties of that being much easier to communicate 520 00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:54,800 clearly on some of these other forums. 521 00:26:55,240 --> 00:27:00,140 Nikolay: Yeah, so what I think is to get all my, I have almost 522 00:27:00,300 --> 00:27:04,840 100 how-tos written like started a year ago and then I had a 523 00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,060 marathon lasting 3 months or so. 524 00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:13,300 So I'm thinking to create a book, online free book, constantly 525 00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:19,200 growing on GitHub, GitLab, maybe on both and having community 526 00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:20,040 around it. 527 00:27:20,060 --> 00:27:23,380 Some small community, you know, people who want to have good 528 00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:28,040 run books, how to analyze at full speed, for example. 529 00:27:28,860 --> 00:27:32,160 vacuumdb and like number of cores, what to think about, and so 530 00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:32,560 on. 531 00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:36,680 This is simple task at first glance, but turned out not so simple. 532 00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:38,540 Yeah, things not to forget. 533 00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:43,200 And yeah, I just need to structure these recipes and I'm very 534 00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:44,840 curious what people think. 535 00:27:45,380 --> 00:27:46,680 Let's test it. 536 00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:48,240 Let's test if we have community. 537 00:27:48,700 --> 00:27:52,880 I ask people who listen to this, until this point, please comment 538 00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:54,060 somewhere. 539 00:27:54,140 --> 00:27:58,700 If you listen on YouTube, you know there is comment section below, 540 00:27:58,700 --> 00:28:00,640 as always people say. 541 00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:03,440 But if it's broadcast, just Twitter or... 542 00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:07,820 Yeah, I use Twitter, so you can just comment there, because we 543 00:28:07,820 --> 00:28:10,580 have Postgres.FM account on Twitter right 544 00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,960 Michael: well yeah but if anybody else was thinking of starting 545 00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:19,640 a podcast around this I originally I think if you'd asked me 546 00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,760 in week 1, would I recommend doing it to YouTube as well? 547 00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:25,200 I wouldn't have been that fussed, I would have thought it's not 548 00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:28,660 that big a deal, most people are going to listen to your podcast 549 00:28:28,660 --> 00:28:32,960 via the audio stream, so it doesn't matter that much, but we 550 00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:36,900 would have missed out on so many comments it's the the barrier 551 00:28:36,900 --> 00:28:42,380 to leaving somebody some feedback via a podcast about an audio 552 00:28:42,380 --> 00:28:45,720 only podcast it's hassle you have to look it up or you have to 553 00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:46,580 write a review. 554 00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:48,040 It's always tricky. 555 00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:50,100 It's always a little bit of extra work. 556 00:28:50,100 --> 00:28:52,660 The barrier to writing a comment when you're watching a video 557 00:28:52,660 --> 00:28:56,820 on YouTube is so low that we get the vast majority, even though 558 00:28:56,820 --> 00:28:59,720 most of our listeners don't listen on YouTube, the vast majority 559 00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,140 of our feedback and comments come on YouTube. 560 00:29:02,620 --> 00:29:04,520 Yeah, so, yeah. 561 00:29:04,620 --> 00:29:09,560 Nikolay: My ask is to go to Postgres.tv it will redirect to YouTube 562 00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:13,520 channel where we also publish Postgres.FM podcast and under this 563 00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:16,200 episode please comment if you think it's a good idea. 564 00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:20,920 Because I'm thinking for some time and I just need understanding 565 00:29:21,140 --> 00:29:24,720 that it will be useful for other folks because I'm not doing 566 00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:25,940 for myself. 567 00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:30,120 For myself I already wrote a lot of stuff but I want to publish 568 00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:35,880 for free and see if this resonates and is actually useful. 569 00:29:37,060 --> 00:29:38,500 It's like a bunch of how-tos. 570 00:29:39,140 --> 00:29:41,140 Michael: I don't know if I have to leave a comment on YouTube 571 00:29:41,140 --> 00:29:42,480 but I would find that useful. 572 00:29:43,180 --> 00:29:43,680 Nikolay: Good. 573 00:29:43,940 --> 00:29:44,740 Plus 1. 574 00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:46,300 Michael: Yeah, plus 1. 575 00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:51,060 I think, and maybe I have a bias here but I've seen places kind 576 00:29:51,060 --> 00:29:54,020 of try to encourage community involvement before and it's been 577 00:29:54,020 --> 00:29:56,760 a list like sometimes the way that you have These discus things 578 00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:01,020 or you have like I think There's a site I like by the team at 579 00:30:01,020 --> 00:30:05,500 Ongress called postgresqlco.nf, and that has a whole section 580 00:30:05,500 --> 00:30:06,180 for comments. 581 00:30:06,180 --> 00:30:10,940 But either nobody does, or the quality of the comments are dubious, 582 00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:14,480 so maybe some kind of, I don't know how you would encourage comments 583 00:30:14,500 --> 00:30:17,780 or, and also moderate them for quality and things. 584 00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:18,840 It's a tricky 585 00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:19,340 Nikolay: topic. 586 00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:24,320 Our website, Postgres.AI website and blog section doesn't have 587 00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:24,820 comments. 588 00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:28,000 There is a request and there is demand for comments people ask 589 00:30:28,980 --> 00:30:30,080 from time to time. 590 00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:34,040 My idea is discourse and all the approach to comments doesn't 591 00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:34,540 work. 592 00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:38,000 This morning I wanted, you know, we discussed topic about query 593 00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:42,080 ID and auto_explain and the fact that on Aurora it didn't work 594 00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:44,540 and then it turned out that it was Postgres 15. 595 00:30:45,660 --> 00:30:50,600 And I saw a blog post on AWS blog and there are a couple of comments 596 00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:54,160 there Asking why it doesn't work and I wanted to leave a comment 597 00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:58,120 sharing my finding which I think thank you actually comes from 598 00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:02,780 you That it starts starts working only since Pocket 16. 599 00:31:03,540 --> 00:31:07,280 I spent 20 minutes, asynchronously, trying to register there 600 00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:09,280 and create AWS Builder account. 601 00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:11,520 I have Builder account, but they say it's already blocked. 602 00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:12,400 I just created it. 603 00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:13,200 Why is it blocked? 604 00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:14,440 For violation of something. 605 00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:19,140 So these comments don't work, and also I feel the urge to create 606 00:31:19,140 --> 00:31:21,540 something new here, but I don't know what. 607 00:31:21,540 --> 00:31:24,860 We just discussed that there are sometimes comments in merge 608 00:31:24,860 --> 00:31:29,540 requests or pull requests, and they are very contextual, right? 609 00:31:29,540 --> 00:31:34,860 They belong to some part of the text or the code. 610 00:31:35,740 --> 00:31:40,200 And what if you publish an article, normal thing is, I think 611 00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:43,080 you also have it, source code is already published on GitHub, 612 00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:44,020 for example, right? 613 00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:48,380 Sometimes even there is an edit button to propose correction 614 00:31:48,380 --> 00:31:49,040 of typo. 615 00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:50,900 Also, not many people do it, right? 616 00:31:51,060 --> 00:31:56,200 But what if the discussion would be coming from GitHub or something 617 00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:57,720 and related to code? 618 00:31:57,720 --> 00:31:58,580 I don't know. 619 00:31:59,100 --> 00:32:03,540 It's the job of GitLab to provide some snippet so I could embed 620 00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:09,900 into my website and have a discussion maybe leading to some corrections 621 00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:13,440 or additions to the text and improving it. 622 00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:17,780 So this is something I'm thinking, but it doesn't exist yet. 623 00:32:17,780 --> 00:32:19,920 GitHub doesn't provide it, GitLab doesn't provide it. 624 00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,820 Maybe it's a good idea for them to consider, for those who keep 625 00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:28,480 Macdown, for example, there on GitHub or GitLab, and then it's 626 00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:32,800 published to like in form of blog post, right? 627 00:32:33,340 --> 00:32:37,400 Because if you have Discos, it's disconnected from everything. 628 00:32:38,300 --> 00:32:39,520 Well, I don't know. 629 00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:42,840 On depesz.com, comments work, right? 630 00:32:42,980 --> 00:32:45,040 Michael: Yeah, same on my blog. 631 00:32:45,660 --> 00:32:46,840 Nikolay: Oh, great, great. 632 00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:48,740 What do you use for... 633 00:32:52,060 --> 00:32:54,220 Michael: I use Squarespace for that blog, yeah. 634 00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:55,640 But it works. 635 00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:00,620 But I like having comments enabled but I also like to be able 636 00:33:00,620 --> 00:33:01,560 to moderate them. 637 00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:05,100 If someone leaves a spam link and then needs to delete it. 638 00:33:06,180 --> 00:33:09,520 So they are important, and I find them really, I actually find 639 00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:10,580 them quite energizing. 640 00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:13,660 Most comments are really positive, like some people just saying 641 00:33:13,660 --> 00:33:15,880 thank you for writing a post that's helped them. 642 00:33:16,060 --> 00:33:18,840 So I feel like that's quite nice, and it's also quite nice for 643 00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,360 other people to then read that it helped us others, you know, 644 00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:25,920 I think that's quite almost like makes you feel like other people 645 00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:28,280 have actually come across the same issues as you, that kind of 646 00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:30,220 thing, you know, community stuff. 647 00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:34,320 Nikolay: Yeah, so anyway, like folks who listen to us, please 648 00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:38,940 leave a comment on YouTube and say if you think it's a good idea 649 00:33:39,220 --> 00:33:42,440 to have my how-tos published in a different form, in the form 650 00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:43,760 of book, online book. 651 00:33:43,860 --> 00:33:48,720 And also just say simple words if you consider this podcast useful. 652 00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:50,420 We need it. 653 00:33:51,060 --> 00:33:51,420 Right? 654 00:33:51,420 --> 00:33:54,020 Michael: Do you know, actually, something I didn't even think 655 00:33:54,020 --> 00:33:58,940 to bring up was I've seen both of us have done it But I've seen 656 00:33:58,940 --> 00:34:02,960 you have quite a lot of success with these polls on certain social 657 00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:03,080 media. 658 00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:04,160 Nikolay: Oh yeah, on Twitter. 659 00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:05,780 It works on Twitter very well. 660 00:34:06,020 --> 00:34:08,280 Michael: And I think LinkedIn quite well as well. 661 00:34:08,420 --> 00:34:11,820 People are way more likely to be able to answer a poll than to 662 00:34:11,820 --> 00:34:14,840 answer a question on some of these sites. 663 00:34:15,300 --> 00:34:16,860 And it can be really helpful. 664 00:34:16,860 --> 00:34:17,880 I know it's biased. 665 00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:19,080 Nikolay: I like polls. 666 00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:24,240 Yeah, well, it always depends on, like, you can influence it, 667 00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,280 choosing proper language and options you can influence. 668 00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:33,440 But I mostly consider it more like fun, but sometimes good insight. 669 00:34:33,460 --> 00:34:34,360 Michael: Yeah, that's cool. 670 00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:38,860 But the bias thing, I actually didn't mean as much the wording 671 00:34:38,860 --> 00:34:43,680 which can definitely sway survey design and stuff is a whole 672 00:34:43,780 --> 00:34:48,740 another topic but I actually meant bias because Who does it reach 673 00:34:48,740 --> 00:34:52,420 like it reaches your followers and then depends a lot on who 674 00:34:52,420 --> 00:34:54,480 likes it retweets it that kind of thing 675 00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:54,960 Nikolay: Of course 676 00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:58,380 Michael: as to who it's even reaching So for example, if you 677 00:34:58,380 --> 00:35:01,740 with your followers asking a question about Postgres versus 678 00:35:01,740 --> 00:35:06,360 MySQL it would unlikely be a representative poll. 679 00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:08,160 Nikolay: It is so. 680 00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:12,940 But this is my small world and I like it and I'm curious what 681 00:35:12,940 --> 00:35:17,080 people around my Twitter account think. 682 00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:20,040 This is what I'm most interested in. 683 00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:23,480 I'm not interested in people who just like very far and like 684 00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:26,760 MySQL users and like what do, what they think about pg_dump. 685 00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:30,280 Although sometimes we have intersections as well. 686 00:35:30,820 --> 00:35:37,800 And, quite often CEO of PlanetScale chimes in asking something 687 00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:40,180 about Postgres, so it's interesting. 688 00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,220 Michael: Which by the way, that's incredible, right? 689 00:35:43,940 --> 00:35:48,580 That we can be having a conversation online and the CEO of PlanetScale... 690 00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:50,320 Nikolay: Well I don't have such... 691 00:35:50,540 --> 00:35:51,720 I don't have such... 692 00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:53,140 How to say... 693 00:35:53,240 --> 00:35:53,740 Perception. 694 00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:56,620 So, CEO, so what? 695 00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:57,740 It's good that... 696 00:35:57,740 --> 00:36:02,500 I mean, it's good that I'm dealing with himself, not with his 697 00:36:02,500 --> 00:36:06,960 assistant, because sometimes, you know, democracy works in the 698 00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:11,840 US, for example, but I cannot reach the director of my daughter's 699 00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:15,300 elementary school because she sends assistant to organize zoom 700 00:36:15,300 --> 00:36:18,140 call and doesn't respond to emails for 2 weeks. 701 00:36:19,740 --> 00:36:26,680 Yeah, well, I just appreciate when any level of manager, they 702 00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:28,820 just go and talk directly. 703 00:36:28,900 --> 00:36:29,620 It's great. 704 00:36:30,340 --> 00:36:31,600 Michael: And listen to users. 705 00:36:31,740 --> 00:36:35,260 Yeah, Whether or not it's listening is another question I guess. 706 00:36:35,380 --> 00:36:38,560 Actually before we wrap up I had a couple of others just quick, 707 00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,240 they're not really communities but I realized when you mentioned 708 00:36:41,240 --> 00:36:44,020 Hacker News it was kind of like a little bit of staying in touch 709 00:36:44,020 --> 00:36:48,160 with what's happening And I realized I actually rely on non-community. 710 00:36:48,380 --> 00:36:51,880 Well, I guess one's relatively community-driven, which is 711 00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:55,880 Planet PostgreSQL, which is a blogging syndication platform. 712 00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:58,960 That's kind of a community site in a way. 713 00:36:59,060 --> 00:37:04,320 Lots of people from non-official sources posting about Postgres. 714 00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:07,760 And I find that an extremely helpful way of staying in the loop 715 00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:10,680 of what people are thinking about what issues people are hitting 716 00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:14,240 what products people are building that kind of thing and on a 717 00:37:14,240 --> 00:37:17,920 similar vein Especially if you don't want to follow all of those 718 00:37:18,260 --> 00:37:21,700 Postgres Weekly is a good newsletter for like what are the highlights 719 00:37:21,700 --> 00:37:23,500 this week from the Postgres world 720 00:37:24,660 --> 00:37:25,160 Nikolay: Yep. 721 00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:27,860 Michael: Is there anything else in that kind of vein that 722 00:37:27,860 --> 00:37:28,900 you'd point people to... 723 00:37:28,900 --> 00:37:32,860 Nikolay: Well, I don't think newsletters are communities because 724 00:37:32,860 --> 00:37:34,920 you don't have full-out discussion there. 725 00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:38,240 But yeah, I agree, it's a good source of what's happening. 726 00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:40,260 Michael: Yeah, true. 727 00:37:41,180 --> 00:37:43,680 Any last advice or things for people? 728 00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,620 Nikolay: Well, Thank you for all who are listening to us. 729 00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:53,260 We will discuss, like, very interesting topics are coming, I 730 00:37:53,260 --> 00:37:54,040 must say. 731 00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:55,220 Stay tuned. 732 00:37:55,580 --> 00:37:56,080 Yeah. 733 00:37:57,800 --> 00:37:58,760 Michael: I like that. 734 00:37:59,060 --> 00:38:01,400 I'm going to consider that a performance pun. 735 00:38:01,620 --> 00:38:04,120 Nikolay: Stay, yeah, performance tuned as well 736 00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:05,520 Michael: stay tuned yeah exactly 737 00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:05,800 Nikolay: good 738 00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:07,320 Michael: take care thanks a lot Nikolay