PostgreSQL 6.0: The Berkeley SQL Engine Reaches Maturity

It’s early 1997, and if you’ve been looking for an open-source alternative to the big, expensive relational databases like Oracle or Sybase, your options have been limited. mSQL was too simple, and MySQL (while fast) lacks many features. But PostgreSQL 6.0 has just arrived, and it’s a serious contender.

From Postgres95 to 6.0

The project has dropped the "95" from its name to signify a major jump in stability and performance. The big news in 6.0 is the major performance improvements-especially in the way it handles vacuuming and multi-user concurrency. It’s finally starting to feel like a production-ready system.

Advanced Features

What sets Postgres apart is its pedigree. Born at UC Berkeley, it supports features we take for granted in the "big" databases:

• Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC)
• Triggers and Stored Procedures
• Complex Joins and Subqueries
• Extensible Types

/* Postgres supports custom types long before it was cool */
CREATE TYPE complex (
    re float8,
    im float8
);

The Reliability Choice

While MySQL is winning the "speed" race for simple web apps, PostgreSQL is becoming the "integrity" choice. If your data is precious and your queries are complex, you go with Postgres. We’ve just switched our internal bug tracking system over to 6.0, and the ability to use real transactions is a massive relief. It’s an "academic" project that’s finally learned how to survive in the real world.

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