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Comment by dizzystar | Hacker News Reader

Very nice article.

The section under "the ideal administrator" is quite eye-opening. I pretty much use PostgreSQL exclusively, and I've found that every time I learn something new, there is another mile of learning to go, and that feedback cycle never seems to end.

I have a few PostgreSQL-specific book on admin and server programming, but I wonder where I would be able to go to really learn this stuff. Are there any classes or places to go for this sort of SQL training?

How does one go about becoming a total master at this? I find that, out of all the programming that I do, I love working with SQL the most and I want to dive deeper into it.

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How does one go about becoming a total master at this? I find that, out of all the programming that I do, I love working with SQL the most and I want to dive deeper into it.

Exposure, exploration, and experience.

I started my career in a role similar to the one it sounds like you're in today: at first, I was just another developer. Then I was the developer who knew and liked SQL pretty well. At some point, there was a shift where I started spending more time helping people do database-y things than I did developing. Subsequently, keeping our PostgreSQL instances happy was officially made my job. Then I got a job with the title DBA based on that experience. Though I've moved on a couple times since, that's the hat I've worn for the better part of a decade now. It's not always the most exciting work (and when it is exciting, it's often enough the wrong kind of exciting), but it's almost always interesting.

It probably helped that I've always been a technologist for sake of fascination with technology, who happened to realize you could also make a decent living with those skills. I'd started playing with Linux in the late '90s, for example, out of a "What's this all about?" sort of curiosity. Net, I almost accidentally ended up checking nearly every box in that "ideal administrator" section. My C is pretty rusty, and my network admin-fu is weak, but I don't think the breadth of my skills are unrelated to people (management and technical folk alike) at my last several jobs telling me I'm the best DBA they've ever worked with.

Also keep in mind that PostgreSQL provides unparalleled programming possibilities. I don't think it is humanly possible to fully master every possible aspect of PostgreSQL. Consider what this means:

1. Mastering standard data modelling techniques

2. Mastering advanced, PostgreSQL-specific data modelling techniques

3. Mastering server-side procedure programming in a large number of languages (C, Perl, Lisp, TCL, PHP, Python, Java, ...)

4. Mastering server-side type/language handler programming

5. Mastering tuning PostgreSQL to the OS, and tuning the OS to PostgreSQL

6. etc. This list can probably go on forever.

The best you can do is master a significant part of things and use that to carve out a niche.

I would suggest subscribing to and reading the fine postgresql mailing lists (general and performance).

It's amazing what you can learn from the questions and answers they get.

EnterpriseDB offers training around their product (enterprise of PostgreSQL) but they might occasionally inject EnterpriseDB specific materials.

Other than that, the knowledge is rather sporadic (books, documentations, mailing-lists, the actual source code itself, join PostgreSQL community, etc).

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