Please tell us about yourself, and where you are from.
My name is Philippe. I was raised in the woods of Québec, in a small town called Rivière-du-Loup. I moved to the US for university, and since then have lived a bit all over the place, but I’m primarily based in NYC.
How do you spend your free time? What are your hobbies?
I play badminton, run, box, and I work out.
Any exercises you do regularly?
The ones above, especially badminton which I try to do at least once a week.
Last book you read? Or a book you want to recommend to readers?
I really like this book, from a Québe author, called “Six Degrees of Freedom”. It’s a fiction about two teenagers, one computer genius and his travel-hungry bestfriend, who retrofit a shipping container into a livable space and hack port software to route the container to the various parts of the world the bestfriends wishes to travel to.
Favorite movie, or show?
I’m going to cheat a bit and share many movies. I’m not a big TV shows guy:
Les Intouchables, Shutter Island, Elemental, Ratatouille, Shawshank Redemption, Un Cuento Chino
Les Intouchables is a beautiful movie (in French but subtitled!) about an unexpected friendship between a man living in the slums of Paris and a quadraplegic wealthy senior man. It’s a really touching and well-made story.
Shutter Island and Shawsank Redemption are plot-twist classics.
Un Cuento Chino is about the hardship of moving to a country where you don’t speak the language in a sort of comedic way. I resonated a lot with it when moving to the US for uni.
Elemental and Ratatouille are simply the best Disney movies. Wholesome, great music, great images, and are both about acceptance of the unexpected, which is dear to my heart.
Favourite movie has got to be
Okay fine, Shawshank Redemption I think. In college, I wrote a philosophy paper about the idea of freedom in a broad sense using this movie as inspiration. The acting and storytelling is wonderful, it’s unexpected, it conveys some serious topics in a really magical way. It’s just a must-watch!
Best music, best song?
My favourite English artist is a Swedish singer called Boy in Space. His music is a very unique mix of melancholy, poetry and uplift. It’s very unique. My favourite French artist is this rapper duo called Bigflo & Oli. They sing about family, life, and following your dreams. It’s very wholesome and their flow is top tier. Best song… There’s too many to pick. Maybe “I don’t wanna know” by Goldhouse & Mokita.
Best food?
That is too hard! Raclette? Meat fondue/hotpot? Sashimi? Something like that (but not all together please!)
Best drink? Non-alcoholic or alcoholic?
Black tea or chai latte.
What does your ideal weekend look like?
Park hangout with friends, some physical activity, ideally badminton, and a nice dinner. Also an outdoor movie at Bryant Park in the summer! Personal NYC favourite spots include East River Park, Bryant Park, and Brooklyn Bridge Park (I love parks). Also Win Son has wonderful Taiwanese food!
What’s still on your bucket list?
I would like to attend a concert at Red Rock Amphitheatre in Colorado. Also travel to the middle east. Compose a song. Learn to sail. So so many things!
What is the best advice you ever got?
“It is better to live your dreams than to dream your life”. I took it as a “make every day count and do things that matter to you, rather than chase money/etc.”
When did you start using PostgreSQL, and why?
The first time was as part of my first startup, Whist, to be our source of truth for our backend. We were using Heroku Postgres then, back in 2020. That must’ve been Postgres 12?
Do you remember which version of PostgreSQL you started with?
My guess is 12, but I don’t know exactly.
Yes, and yes. I studied Computer Science and Neuroscience at Harvard. Learning the fundamentals of data structures, theory of computation, etc. really helps with reasoning about Postgres internals.
What other databases are you using? Which one is your favorite?
DuckDB as part of our work at ParadeDB. Also spreadsheets in various forms! Notion/Google Sheets (can’t avoid those. They’re databases right?)
I’m one of the people behind ParadeDB – Postgres for Search and Analytics. We’re building pg_search and pg_analytics.
How do you contribute to PostgreSQL?
I help make open-source extensions to bring better full-text search and analytics.
Any contributions to PostgreSQL which do not involve writing code?
I talk about it a lot online and at meetups, if that counts. For example I’ll be speaking about ParadeDB Postgres at the CMU DB Seminar.
What is your favorite PostgreSQL extension?
Well… pg_search :) But that’s cheating, my favourite is actually Citus. It was the first major extension and is a really clever, upstream-compatible way on a serious Postgres feature. It’s also very elegantly-built.
What is the most annoying PostgreSQL thing you can think of? And any chance to fix it?
I’m not sure what the Postgres Large Objects are for. We tried to use them in our work, and were told it’s pretty much deprecated. I’d like to better understand their use case and whether they’re useful.
What is the feature you like most in the latest PostgreSQL version?
I’m very excited for the continuous improvement to logical replication, which I see as a big piece of making Postgres the database of the future.
Adding to that, what feature/mechanism would you like to see in PostgreSQL? And why?
Replication of DDL commands!
Should PostgreSQL have a built-in connection pooler?
Yes :) We’ve been very interested in query routing via connection poolers and having Postgres come with pgCat for example, or pgBouncer with some query routing capabilities could allow for some cool multi-Postgres setups, like a primary Postgres and a ParadeDB Postgres servicing queries seamlessly.
Should PostgreSQL have built-in multi-master replication?
Hmm, I’m not sure. It’s less common than needing a connection pooler, imo.
Could you describe your PostgreSQL development toolbox?
VS Code and pgrx, for the most part.
Which skills are a must have for a PostgreSQL developer/user?
Understanding of data structure fundamentals, interest in RDBMS, and willingness to read the Postgres source code!
Do you use any git best practices, which makes working with PostgreSQL easier?
Nothing specific, tbh. I have my git aliases but they’re mostly personal.
Which PostgreSQL conferences do you visit? Do you submit talks?
I went to PGConf San Jose, and will be speaking at PGConf NYC in 2024. Would love to attend PGConf EU next year.
Do you think PostgreSQL has a high entry barrier?
I don’t think so, tbh. Frameworks like pgrx have made it easier for developers. For users, it’s really approachable.
What is your advice for people who want to start PostgreSQL developing - as in, contributing to the project. Where and how should they start?
For contributing to core, I don’t know. I have never contributed to core (yet!). For extensions, pgrx is the best place.
Do you think PostgreSQL will be here for many years in the future?
Yes, 100%. It’s only going to grow.
Would you recommend PostgreSQL for business, or for side projects?
Both! Postgres is so versatile.
Are you reading the -hackers mailinglist? Any other list?
At times. I follow the PostgreSQL Hacker Mentoring Discord and the People, Postgres, and Data Discord too.
What is your opinion on ORMs?
Hmm I don’t want to make any enemies here! Jokes aside, I don’t do enough frontend development to really have a strong opinion.
SQL versus NoSQL databases?
Are NoSQL databases even real databases? Is a hot dog a sandwich? SQL all the way.
What other places do you hang out?
The ParadeDB Community Slack and my inbox.
Which other Open Source projects are you involved or interested in?
Tantivy is a big one, also Apache DataFusion and DuckDB.
Anything else you like to add?
Thanks for reading, and come say hi!