"The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released version 8.4, continuing the rapid development of the world's most advanced open source database. This release contains an abundance of enhancements to make administering, querying, and programming of PostgreSQL databases easier than ever before. Our development team has spent 16 months adding over two hundred improvements to all aspects of database functionality, helping every PostgreSQL user in small or large ways."

Many of the changes in PostgreSQL 8.4 are new or improved. My favorites are:

• parallel restore: allow pg_restore to use multiple concurrent connections to do the restore. I used this feature even before 8.4 has been released;
• version-aware psql: psql 8.4+ will be backward-compatible. This will allow me have only one psql to administrate all of the PostgreSQL servers;
• window functions: BI guys will love it!
• common table expressions and recursive queries:robustness and recursiveness;
• column-level permissions: it is one of the most requested features ever. The other DBMSs already have it but PostgreSQL don't;
• visibility map: track pages that don't require vacuuming;
• auto-sizing free space map: free space discovered by VACUUM is recorded in files instead of shared memory. This simplifies administration (two settings were removed);
• ef psql command: easily edit functions in psql. This is one of my favorite features in 8.4;
• per-database locale settings: LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE can be set per database;
• ssl certificates for user authentication: cert authentication method was add to authenticate a user;
• pg_terminate_backend(): function that safely terminate a backend (connection);
• ON TRUNCATE triggers: support statement levels triggers when we're truncating a table;
• sub-selects in LIMIT and OFFSET: SELECT * FROM foo LIMIT (SELECT a FROM bar where b = 1);
• prefix matching in full text searches: SELECT * FROM foo WHERE a @@ 'oliv:*';
• per-relation autovacuum parameters: this is a feature that I and Alvaro worked on and it removes a system table and add the capability to dump autovacuum parameters per relation;
• array_agg() and unnest(): row values <-> array;
• variadic functions: functions with variable number of arguments;
• default values for function arguments: another nice feature for pl languages;
• DETAIL, HINT, and SQLSTATE in RAISE: RAISE SQLSTATE '22012';
• new DTrace probes: in 8.3 we had 11 and now it is 54;
• auto_explain contrib module: automagically run EXPLAIN on queries exceeding a specified duration;
• citext contrib module: provide a case-sensitive data type;
• duration option for pgbench: allows specifying the duration of benchmark;

I will not cite all of the features (it is too much -- 293!); after all, that's why we have a release notes. ;)

Test it! Enjoy it!

After some long trip (11 hours) I finally arrived to Ottawa. Nice city (It was my first time in it)! Although it was calm 'cause of the holliday on Monday. I met some known people in the community; some of them I already had a chance to meet when they were in Brazil. The conference was run just one block from hotel (Residence) and the happy hour (Royal Oak) was just 2 blocks away. There was not so cold (it was spring); the sun was shiny almost all of the days I was there.

The conference was cool! I like the hackers-to-hackers conference because you have the opportunity to discuss internal aspects with the developers and, of course, ask for your favorite feature. ;) I attended to a lot of interesting talks (replication, benchmarks, unit tests, GIS were some of the most popular topics) and "collected" a lot of interesting tools. It was my first time in PGCon and I had the responsability to talk to some people interested in the subject (similarity queries) -- see the video. It was a good time to collect some ideas (that was added to my TODO) and show what I'm developing in my master thesis. I had a translator role in the Luis talk (it was my first time) but besides some GIS terms I had no idea, it was fine. ;)

After the conference, I had a one-day-tourist-trip. I visited some tourist points (Parliament, Canal, Canadian War Museum, Monuments, and so on). I took some pics and add them to my album.

The trip back was better than the departure one (because I had some space to strech my legs :-). I came back with a lot of ideas (I already started some tools to aid DBAs) and some of those ideas were to my TODO.

Everything started when David Fetter suggested that we could organize small meetings during FISL 7.0 (2006). The idea stayed in our schedule but had low priority; at that time we were organizing the first national PostgreSQL (PGCon Brasil). After two national conferences, we were discussing about where would be the 2010 conference (the next one will be in Campinas, SP again) and someone (Fernando Ike) had a brilliant idea that we will take the conclusions after seeing the results of the regional PGDays.

We started organizing the PGDays. The first one was in Brasília (PGDay-DF), the second one in São Paulo (PGDay-SP), the third one in two cities (Porto Velho and Ji-Paraná) in Rondônia (PGDay-RO) and the last one in Porto Alegre (PGDay-RS). And it will be another one in Florianópolis (PGDay-SC). I had the oportunity to be in all of them until now but I will not go to PGDay-SC because I'm heading to PGCon. There are some rumors of PGDays in Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Belo Horizonte (MG), Curitiba (PR), and Fortaleza (CE).

In my humble opinion, all of them rocked. ;) I liked to meet old friends (DF and SP), new friends (RO and RS) and places (RO), and heard new-potential-pgcon-speakers (who knows?). I posted some pics in my album.

Kudos for all of the organizers!

Stay tuned about new events.

The PGCon Brazil's idea started after a talk during FISL 2007. We know that it was the challenge was hard but we face it. It was a small organization committee. All of them worked hard. The last month was a hurry; marketing and last details were the main goals.

Despite of the little delay (10 mins) due to chaos of São Paulo (which is normal :-), we coordinated well the work's progress. I was very impressed with the excellent level of the technical talks. The audience was as qualified as our speakers (i hope that next year event, we have some of them in the scene). Meet some old friends and new ones that i talked only in the net was great.

For those that doesn't go, my talks were available at publications section.

I learned a lot during those two days. I hope to see some of you in the next PGCon Brazil.

I would like to thanks the organization committee for all of its effort. You did one of the best PostgreSQL events in the world.

I didn't have time to maitain the album's software so I decided to move my pics to flickr. I didn't upload all of my pics yet, because now is the end of the semester and I'm doing my best in the Google Summer of Code. Feel free to leave some comments there. ;)

Long, long time I didn't post anything here. I'm not a good blogger but sometimes I try to be. ;) A lot of people bugs me about updating my website so this afternoon I have the brilliant idea to do this. I put my talks at Publications, update the Projects I participate and my own information.
For you that don't know I'm one of the Google Summer of Code Student. I'm developing a cool app, that's an ER tool integrated in pgAdmin. Stay tuned, I will post some preliminary version as soon as I have something functional.
The Brazilian PostgreSQL mailing lists were integrated. Now we have roughly 2,500 members. Thanks to PgBR guys for this effort.

I arrived from Porto Alegre few hours ago. There was a lot of presentations, stands, nerds :). My presentation was good. I couldn't image that there are so many people interested in replication. Pics could be seen from my album. I met the PgBR guys and David Fetter; we discussed a lot about PostgreSQL project.

I'm wasting my nanoseconds of free time on weekends to set up my website. The new blog system is functional. Free free to comment on the posts. :) Now I'll work to set up my stuff (articles, projects, tips, etc) on it. It's too late to start it. I'll put my hands on it when I have time.

Those guys who don't believe i'll go out with my Personal Home Page: here it is! :) I'm going to reengineering the engine in the next days and put some content. Please be patient. Don't expect i'll blogging too often, and I certainly don't promise it will be interesting 'cause it's a blog, my blog man!