Why mentor Postgres developers with Robert Haas | Talking Postgres Ep24
Nobody works on an open-source project forever—eventually, people move on. So of course today's Postgres contributors want to see more developers join the project, pick up the torch, and continue to make Postgres amazing. Hence the importance of mentorship. In this episode of Talking Postgres, PostgreSQL major contributor and committer Robert Haas shares how he learned the ropes in Postgres by channeling “what would Tom Lane do” during patch reviews; why he launched the new PostgreSQL Hackers Mentoring program; and the intellectually stimulating care and feeding it takes to make Postgres thrive.
Chapters:
⏩ 00:00 The Beginning
⏩ 01:28 Why Robert cares about mentoring
⏩ 08:42 New PostgreSQL Hackers Mentoring program
⏩ 22:02 Is everyone just like me?
⏩ 50:42 Trick for working with different people
⏩ 54:42 Getting ready for PGConf.dev in May
⏩ 1:06:39 Monthly hacking workshop for Postgres
⏩ 1:19:09 You know yourself better than anyone else
📜 Full transcript available at:
https://talkingpostgres.com/episodes/...
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Links mentioned in this episode:
🔹 Podcast episode on Becoming a Postgres committer with Melanie Plageman: • Becoming a Postgres committer with Melanie...
🔹 Slide in PGConf EU 2024 talk by Claire Giordano about Contributions to Postgres, including new mentoring program: https://speakerdeck.com/clairegiordan...
🔹 Blog post about New Mentoring Program for Postgres Code Contributors, by Robert Haas: https://rhaas.blogspot.com/2024/06/me...
🔹 Blog post on Postgres Mentoring Program Updates, by Robert Haas: https://rhaas.blogspot.com/2024/07/me...
🔹 Discord invite for PostgreSQL Hacker Mentoring server: / discord
🔹 Bio for Margo Seltzer, PGConf.dev 2024 keynote speaker: https://www.cs.ubc.ca/people/margo-se...
🔹 Video of PGConf.dev 2024 panel discussion about Making PostgreSQL Hacking More Inclusive with Postgres committers Amit Langote, Masahiko Sawada, Melanie Plageman, & Robert Haas: • Making PostgreSQL Hacking More Inclusive (...
🔹 Mailing list for PostgreSQL Hackers: https://www.postgresql.org/list/pgsql...
🔹 PGConf.dev 2025, the annual PostgreSQL Development Conference happening this year in Montreal Canada on May 13-16, 2025: https://2025.pgconf.dev/
🔹 Blog posts by Postgres committer Tomas Vondra: https://vondra.me/tags/postgres/ - Look for [PATCH IDEA]
🔹 Video of CMUDB Database talk about the PostgreSQL Optimizer Methodology, by Robert Haas: • PostgreSQL Optimizer Methodology (Robert H...
🔹 Podcast episode on How I got started as a developer & in Postgres with David Rowley: • How I got started as a developer (& in Pos...
🔹 Calendar invite: LIVE recording of Ep25 of Talking Postgres podcast to happen on Wed Mar 12, 2025 with guest Dawn Wages of the Python developer community: https://aka.ms/talkingpostgres-ep25-cal
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