Seven Databases in Seven Weeks, 2nd Edition

That’s Post-greS-Q-L

So, What’s with the Name?

PostgreSQL has existed in the current project incarnation since 1995, but its roots go back much further. The project was originally created at UC Berkeley in the early 1970s and called the Interactive Graphics and Retrieval System, or “Ingres” for short. In the 1980s, an improved version was launched post-Ingres—shortened to “Postgres.” The project ended at Berkeley proper in 1993 but was picked up again by the open source community as Postgres95. It was later renamed to PostgreSQL in 1996 to denote its rather new SQL support and has retained the name ever since.

PostgreSQL is by far the oldest and most battle-tested database in this book. It has domain-specific plug-ins for things like natural ...