Nikolay and Michael discuss 10 beginner tips Nikolay recently shared — they go into a bit more detail on each, and even disagree a little on one or two!

Here are some links to some things they mentioned:

  • Nikolay’s tweet with all 10 tips: https://twitter.com/samokhvalov/status/1679953049899642880
  • Tip 1: tuples are physical versions of rows
  • Related episodes: https://postgres.fm/episodes/how-to-become-a-dba , https://postgres.fm/episodes/hot-updates
  • Tip 2:always use EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS)
  • Related episode: https://postgres.fm/episodes/buffers-by-default
  • Tip 3: throw away pgAdmin
  • Related episode: https://postgres.fm/episodes/psql-vs-guis
  • Tip 4: enable as much logging as you can afford
  • Related episode:https://postgres.fm/episodes/default-configuration
  • Tip 5: install pg_stat_statements
  • Related episodes:https://postgres.fm/episodes/pg_stat_statements and https://postgres.fm/episodes/auto_explain
  • Tip 6: run experiments on realistic data sets (use thin cloning and branching)
  • Related episode:https://postgres.fm/episodes/database-branching
  • Tip 7: make sure data checksums are enabled
  • Related episode: https://postgres.fm/episodes/corruption
  • Tip 8: tune autovacuum to run frequently and move faster
  • Related episode: https://postgres.fm/episodes/vacuum
  • Tip 9: query optimization will eventually be more important than configuration tuning
  • Related episodes: https://postgres.fm/episodes/intro-to-query-optimization and https://postgres.fm/episodes/102-query-optimization
  • Tip 10: indexes need to be rebuilt, unfortunately, since their health decline over time
  • Related episode: https://postgres.fm/episodes/index-maintenance
  • Bonus tip: the official documentation, release notes, and source code comments/readmes are your friends!

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What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!

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Postgres FM is brought to you by:

  • Nikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.ai
  • Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustard

With special thanks to:

  • Jessie Draws for the amazing artwork