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Speaker Interview with Pavlo Golub

Could you briefly introduce yourself?
I am a PostgreSQL expert and developer at Cybertec. I've been working with PostgreSQL for 16 years. I first encountered PostgreSQL within an ASPLinux distribution when I was a student. Back then I had vowed to myself, "never-ever work with databases"-- I was absolutely sure that “those databases are some bookkeeping trash!” But I wanted to become a real programmer. And here I am. :)
How do you engage with the PostgreSQL Community?
I’ve been a member of the community for a long time. I'm a frequent guest and speaker at different PostgreSQL events. My dream is to become a core hacker. But this city always needs a hero. Thus I'm mostly doing the dirty jobs, like client applications development, tuning and consulting, porting Patroni to Windows... Boring stuff, you know :)
Another dream I have is to build an active local PUG in the Ukraine. Come and join us! Even if you’re not from the Ukraine: www.facebook.com/groups/postgresql.ua
We run official community meetups in two cities already:
Let me know if you want to be a speaker or want to visit our beautiful country.
But the final goal is to hold "pgconf.eu" in the Ukraine, of course.
Have you enjoyed previous pgconf.eu or FOSDEM conferences, either as an attendee or as speaker?
The first time I visited "pgconf.eu" was in Amsterdam, 2011. Since that time, I’ve missed only one in Dublin and that was only because of visa issues. And I've at last visited FOSDEM, last year. I volunteered at the community booth, and that was a fantastic feeling.
What will your talk be about, exactly? Why this topic?
Saying you're working with Windows sounds like "coming out" in the Postgres Community. :) Nevertheless, a lot of companies need support for the Windows environment. Not only for the PostgreSQL server itself, but for the whole PostgreSQL universe: extensions, client applications, monitoring solutions, backup and restore tools… you name it!
In this talk, I'll tell you about the history of PostgreSQL and the features implemented in it. I’ll show you how to build and install PostgreSQL from the source, and how to build extensions, if they are not available in binary form. I’ll describe differences in tuning clusters under Linux and Windows.
What is the audience for your talk?
Everybody is welcome! Especially people who want to become part of the community.
What existing knowledge should the attendee have?
Nothing special is needed. Only a good mood, and a desire to learn.
What is the one feature in PostgreSQL 12 which you like most?
The Pluggable Table Storage Interface! But inlined WITH statements are quite cool, as well as generated columns!
Which other talk at this year's conference would you like to see?
LightningTalks for sure! :)
There are plenty of great talks this year! I will for sure visit as many talks as possible from the "Hacker" and "Developer" tracks. But if you want to know the most anticipated... Let them be:
Which measure, action, feature or activity would—in your eyes—help to accelerate the adoption of PostgreSQL?
Presenting PostgreSQL as an open-source community at schools, colleges, and universities. Today's students are the IT professionals of the future world. Involving students in different community activities, e.g.: summer of code; writing manuals and docs; translation and localization.