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Comment by bmh | Hacker News Reader

You (probably) should just use PostGIS, because it's the easiest thing to do, everybody understands it, it's eminently google-able, and ubiquitous. Unless you have a specific reason why you can't, just use PostGIS and enjoy your life.

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I strongly agree. The article explains alternatives to PostGIS, but doesn't say anything about why you should avoid PostGIS. I see no reason at all to avoid it, even when you're just storing lat/long points. (It's "overkill," says the article, but that's harmless at worst.)

> (It's "overkill," says the article, but that's harmless at worst.)

I don't disagree in this specific case, but that's not always true.

I remember on a contract years ago another team working on a project - that started before I joined and was still going when I left - to build a big data analytics pipeline (hadoop, kafka, etc.) that achieved nothing. The whole thing could much more easily have been implemented with SQL Server (which they already had), PostgreSQL, or whatever.

At the very least it cost them a lot of wasted effort plus maybe a dozen sets of salaries and contractor rates (there was a mix). But it also stymied solutions in other areas because the answer was, "oh, we don't need to do that because the big data project has it covered." The opportunity cost was significant: the company lacked the capabilities it needed for as long as this white elephant continued lumbering on its way.

The only reason I can think of it to avoid the extension installation, but then it goes on to use another extension for a function that's available in PostGIS, along with everything else.

So yeah maybe if you only need to store the data and don't need operations (why even bother then), otherwise just use postgis.

Also, you will know that if in future your use case extends, you wont have to rewrite things.

I'm future you! I made the mistake of taking a system that did some GIS like things. The first layer was easy! PG has some handy built in types! Hoory. But then Business needed features! Two years later you've got eight half-baked complex features that would have been almost trivial with this extension. Don't make my mistake again! Yea, you may not need it but, you will WANT it.

Indeed, it is very often the case. Furthermore, it is not like PostGIS is adding costly overhead. Zero impact where you don't use it. And potentially a lot of trouble saved where you do.

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