Six years, a prototype, and a brief multi-layered descent into “wronger and wronger” design—what does it take to land a major architectural change in Postgres? In Episode 31 of Talking Postgres, Andres Freund—major contributor, Postgres committer, and lead of the Asynchronous I/O project—shares the wins, the missteps, and why he thinks AIO definitely took too long. We dig into io_uring in Linux, direct I/O, streaming reads, technical leadership, and exactly when is the right time to stop working on a prototype. If you’ve ever wondered how big architectural changes happen, or why they sometimes take years, this episode is for you.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Talking Postgres podcast: How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with Andres Freund & Heikki Linnakangas
• Release Notes: PostgreSQL 18 release notes
• News: PostgreSQL RC 1 Released on Sep 04 2025
• Wikipedia page: io_uring
• PostgreSQL: Join the PostgreSQL Hacking Discord
• Video of talk: What went wrong with AIO by Andres Freund at PGConfdev 2025
• Commit: Add core asynchronous I/O infrastructure to PostgreSQL
• Wiki page: AIO project in PostgreSQL with state, sub-projects, and work still to be done
• Upcoming Talk: AIO in PG 18 and Beyond at PGConf NYC on 30 Sep 2025
• Upcoming Talk: AIO in PG 18 and Beyond at PGConf EU on 23 Oct 2025
• Wikipedia page: XZ Utils backdoor discovery by Andres Freund
• Cal invite: LIVE recording of Ep32 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Oct 8, 2025

Why do Postgres developers, contributors, and users do what they do? In each episode of Talking Postgres, Claire Giordano talks to people from across the Postgres ecosystem—how they got started, what they’ve learned, and what they’re still figuring out. This 3-minute trailer offers a fast-paced glimpse into the fun, surprising, and deeply human stories behind Postgres, including failures, wins, obstacles—and all the messy parts in between. New episodes monthly. Always on Fridays. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Episodes from Talking Postgres with guests featured in the trailer (in order of appearance):

Episode 01: Working in public on open source with Simon Willison and Marco Slot

Episode 18: How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with David Rowley

Episode 20: How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with Tom Lane

Episode 07: Why people care about PostGIS and Postgres with Paul Ramsey & Regina Obe

Episode 29: How I got started leading database teams with Shireesh Thota

Episode 25: Why Python developers just use Postgres with Dawn Wages

Episode 19: Becoming a Postgres committer with Melanie Plageman

Episode 24: Why mentor Postgres developers with Robert Haas

Episode 04: How I got started as a dev (& in Postgres) w/Melanie Plageman & Thomas Munro

It’s always a good day if you see a pelican. In Episode 30 of Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano, open source developer Simon Willison—creator of Datasette and co-creator of Django—joins to explore how AI is useful for data engineers today. We move past the hype and boosterism to dig into example after example: structured data extraction, alt text and accessibility, safety and security (aka the fiddly bits), and why Postgres’s fine-grained permissions are such a good fit for AI-powered workflows. Also: Pulitzer-worthy data tooling, the science fiction of the 10X engineer, agents, MCP, RAG, the multitude of models, and why Simon spends so many waking hours on the jagged frontier of AI.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Blog: Simon Willison’s Weblog
• Blog: Simon’s Willison’s TIL - Things I’ve Learned
• Podcast episode: Working in public on open source with Simon Willison and Marco Slot
• Project page: Django Web Framework
• Project page: Datasette, for finding stories in data
• GitHub repo: llm CLI tool and Python library
• Demo: Language models on the command-line w/ Simon Willison
• Blog post: OpenAI’s new open weight (Apache 2) models are really good, by Simon Willison
• Podcast episode: Accessibility and Gen AI podcast with guest Simon Willison
• Blog post: New dashboard: alt text for all my images, by Simon Willison
• Keynote talk: Big Opportunities in Small Data, by Simon Willison at Citus Con: An Event for Postgres 2023
• Blog post: How OpenElections Uses LLMs, by Derek Willis
• Blog posts tagged with pelican-riding-a-bicycle on Simon Willison’s Weblog
• Blog post: No, AI is not Making Engineers 10x as Productive, via Colton Voege, featured on Simon’s weblog
• GitHub repo: pgvector extension to Postgres
• Cal invite: LIVE recording of Ep31 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Sep 17, 2025

From dreaming of driving a bus to leading database engineering at Microsoft. In Episode 29 of Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano, Shireesh Thota traces his path to becoming CVP of Azure databases—rooted in a love of math, early BASIC programming, and a certainty that he’d become an engineer. We dig into the shift from engineer to manager (if only people came with documentation); why it’s so important for Microsoft to contribute to the PostgreSQL open source project—not just consume it; and whether Shireesh has a favorite database (hint: it better be Postgres.)

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Blog post excerpt: Why we have a Postgres open source contributor team at Microsoft
• Podcast episode: Leading engineering for Postgres on Azure with Affan Dar
• VS Code Marketplace: New VS Code extension for PostgreSQL
• POSETTE 2025 talk: Introducing Microsoft’s VS Code extension for Postgres by Matt McFarland
• LinkedIn post: PGConf.dev 2025 talk on “The trouble with extensions” by Marco Slot
• Podcast episode: How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with David Rowley
• Book: Who Moved My Cheese
• Cal invite: LIVE recording of Ep30 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Aug 6, 2025

What drives someone to publish 600+ issues of a Postgres newsletter for over a decade? In Episode 28 of Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano, Peter Cooper—creator of Postgres Weekly—shares how his days of rustic programming and QBASIC fanzines on Usenet led to a newsletter empire that now reaches nearly half a million developers each week. We dig into the BBC's "big tent" editorial influence, an accidental business model that just worked, and the perils of "temporary" hacks. Plus: spam filters, a Photoshop addiction, and one very cheesy story (dairy-free).

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Newsletter: Postgres Weekly
• Cooperpress: List of newsletters
• Newsletter: Latest issue of Postgres Weekly on Jun 19, 2025
• Newsletter: Postgres Weekly issue with horrible graphic
• Newsletter: Very first issue of Postgres Weekly on Mar 13, 2013
• Newsletter: Ruby Weekly, the first Cooperpress newsletter
• Book: Beginning Ruby Third Edition, by Peter Cooper
• Podcast episode: How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with David Rowley
• Feed reader: Feedbin
• GitHub repo: feedbin/feedbin
• Feed reader: Feeder
• Email testing software: Litmus
• GitHub repo: MGML markup language for email
• Paper: The Design of Postgres
• GitHub repo: PGRX for building Postgres extensions in Rust
• Podcast news: Podnews.net for daily briefings about podcasts
• Wikipedia page: BBC Micro
• Wikipedia page: ZX Spectrum
• Cal invite: LIVE recording of Ep29 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Jul 9, 2025

How does a trek to K2 base camp in the Himalayas spark the idea for a database company? In Episode 27 of Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano, guest Peter Farkas—CEO and co-founder of FerretDB—shares the origin story of this open source MongoDB alternative. (Spoiler: “Ferret” wasn’t the original name). We dig into why Postgres was the obvious choice, what “true open source” means to Peter, and how FerretDB is now powered by the open source DocumentDB extension from Microsoft. Plus, why Hungarian Trappist cheese might deserve a footnote in database history.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• GitHub: FerretDB/FerretDB repo
• Blog: FerretDB 2.0 GA: Open Source MongoDB alternative, ready for production
• ACM SIGMOD: The Design of Postgres, published 15 June 1986
• Postgres Weekly: Issue 591 featuring FerretDB
• GitHub: Microsoft/DocumentDB open source repo
• Conference talk: From MongoDB to Postgres: Building an Open Standard for Document Databases at POSETTE 2025
• OSI Blog: The SSL is Not an Open Source License
• RedMonk Blog: OSS: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back, by Stephen O’Grady
• Talking Postgres Ep18: How I got started as a developer (& in Postgres) with David Rowley
• OpenDocDB: initiative to define an open standard
• Wikipedia: K2 (yes, the mountain)
• Go Blog: The Go Gopher
• xkcd: webcomic 927 on Standards
• Wikipedia: Trappista cheese
• Cal invite: LIVE recording of Ep28 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Jun 18, 2025

When I found out that Django developer and Python Software Foundation chair Dawn Wages has a chapter in her upcoming Domain-Driven Django book called “Just Use Postgres”, I knew we had to get her on the show. In this episode of Talking Postgres with Claire Giordano, Dawn breaks down why so many Python and Django developers have such an affinity for Postgres. And we dive into the Djangonaut Space mentoring program (where contributors launch), learn why “free as in puppies” beats “free as in cake” for open source vibes, and dig into why Python is the second-best language for everything.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Project page: psycopg
• Documentation: Psycopg 3 – PostgreSQL database adapter for Python
• Project page: PostgreSQL open source project
• Git repo: code for PostgreSQL.org website
• Conference: PyCon US 2025, happening May 14-22 in Pittsburgh
• Conference: PGConf.dev 2025 Schedule, happening May 13-16 in Montreal Canada
• Conference: Prague PostgreSQL Developer Day 2025 (P2D2) Schedule, which took place Jan 28-29
• Wikipedia page: Model-view-controller software design pattern
• Book: Professional ASP.NET MVC 1.0, affectionately called “the four heads book”
• Podcast episode: Working in Public with Simon Willison & Marco Slot
• Blog: Simon Willison’s TILs, aka Things I’ve learned
• Simon Willison’s Weblog: Here’s how I use LLMs to help me write code
• Simon Willison’s Weblog: How I make annotated presentations
• Survey: Python Developers Survey 2023 Results
• Python Docs: What’s new in Python 3.14
• Mentorship program: Djangonaut Space
• Mentorship program: Media & Talks about Djangonaut Space
• Podcast episode: Why mentor Postgres developers with Robert Haas
• Slides: PGConf EU 2024 talk by Claire Giordano about Contributions to Postgres, including maps showing how global the Postgres project is
• Video of POSETTE 2024 talk by Paolo Melchiorre: Semantic search with Django, PostgreSQL, & pgvector
• Video of Citus Con 2023 talk: Maps with Django (and PostGIS), by Paolo Melchiorre
• Video of Citus Con 2022 talk: Django with PostgreSQL superpowers, by Paolo Melchiorre
• Conference: DjangoCon Africa 2025, happening August 11-15 in Tanzania
• Calendar invite: LIVE recording of Ep26 of Talking Postgres to happen on Wed Apr 02, 2025 with guest Bruce Momjian, to talk about Open Source Leadership