In this article I will tell you about:
- What is PostgreSQL?
- History of PostgreSQL?
- Common use cases of PostgreSQL
So let's get started with first question.
What is PostgreSQL?
PostgreSQL is an advanced open-source relational database system that supports both relational (SQL) and non-relational (JSON) queries. It is one of the highly stable database as it was build more than 20 years ago and it is backed by the open-source community.
It is used as a primary database not just for the web applications but also mobile and analytics applications too.
So this was a little introduction of the PostgreSQL.
Now let's look at the history of PostgreSQL.
History
PostgreSQL originally named as POSTGRES was started in 1986 at Berkeley Computer Science Department, University of California.
The name POSTGRES was in reference to the Ingres that is also a database developed in Berkeley. POSTGRES main goal was to add features needed to support multiple datatypes.
It was renamed to PostgreSQL in 1996 to show it's support for the SQL.
Did you know that it was originally designed to run on UNIX-like programs only. But as the time passed, it was evolved to run on various platforms like macOS, Windows and Solaris.
Now let's dive into some of the use cases of the PostgreSQL also known as Postgres.
Common use cases
Robust database:
It is used as primary back-end database because of it's robustness to power dynamic websites and web applications.General purpose:
It is used in large number of organizations and startups to support their real life products and applications.Geospatial database:
It can help in storing, indexing and querying the geographical data with the PostGIS extensions for the geographic information system.
Languages it support
It supports almost all the popular languages such as Python, Java, JavaScript, C/C++, Ruby, Go, Perl and Tcl.
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