First of all, today we published the latest versions of the PostgreSQL 8 codebase. This only puts us about a month and half behind most of the distributions, but as explained in our last post, this is the result of our experience of the last several months from using code that was built using the cross platform build process on a single machine. We broke everything apart and redesigned our build structure specifically to tackle these quirks. Hopefully, this means that platform specific errors and quirks are a thing of the past. If they are not, we will deal with them as they come up.
With this release there are some other changes to note. First, PGSQLKit is now available in the Developer's folder of the Unified Installer Disk Image, as well as in it's own download. Along with the PGSQLKit getting it's own folder, it also is migrating to a header based documentation, and those documents are contained in the Developer folder as well.
The other notable change is a website change. Starting today, we are switching over to a new comment provider. Our old one, Haloscan, has shut down, and the replacement, Echo, just doesn't offer enough features for us to follow over. Instead we have moved to Disqus for the comments. At this point, we are not entirely sure how the old comments will import. We will see in a few days if it is nice and clean. If not, we will figure something else out.
But what is next?
Well, several things all at once actually.
Since the iPad announcement, we have been tinkering with some work derived from an experiement we did getting libpq and PSQLKit running on the iPhone. The problem was that we really didn't see much use for either on the iPhone. The iPad though, has potential for usage as an interface to PostgreSQL data directly. So that experiment has been reworked a little to see if we can get it all working on the iPad. Initial results are positive, so that project will likely continue to get some attention until we can get our hands on a real device to see if our assumptions about usability and applicability are correct (we think they are).
In addition, Dru and the gang at Druware have started a new project that is the first truly consumer oriented project they have tackled. It is built on PostgreSQL, and they hope to turn it into a bit of a poster child for the power of PostgreSQL. That project itself is expected to take a year or more before it is publicly available, but some of the fruits of that work are already trickling back.
One of the highlights of that effort is the successful relocation and embedding of PostgreSQL into a stand alone application. Meaning that contained within the .app bundle is not only their application, but also a fully functional copy of PostgreSQL that starts, vacuums and stops with the application. The potential usages of this are pretty significant. In this instance, it only uses this model for the single user product of the multi-user capable product, but by enabling this functionality, this makes PostgreSQL the ultimate in scalability, from single user drag and drop installations, to PostgreSQL for Mac multi-user installs all the way up to large scale Sun or Linux hardware dedicated to PostgreSQL.
Last but not least is the beginning of a migration to a new web server for the PostgreSQL project. At the end of 2009, we were given the difference between our donations from 2008 and 2009 and the price a new Mac Mini Server by Druware to acquire a new Mac Mini Server. This wiped out the accumulated donations, so we are back to $0 in the donation account, but allows us to move the PostgreSQL site to it's new home on Mac Mini Server. The full transition probably will not happen for another couple of weeks, but it too is coming soon.