Hans-Jürgen Schönig

About the Speaker

• Tell us about yourself: career, family, passions

  I have been in professional PostgreSQL consulting and support since 1999—so I am one of those guys who has basically been around since the old times when PostgreSQL was not used by anyone doing serious database work. Fortunately this has changed. As for passions and such: I love technology, skiing, aviation, my dog and the good things in life.

• What is your icebreaker for PostgreSQL events?

  Is there a need for an ice breaker? Not sure. Conferences are usually super busy for me. I meet people for breakfast at 7, attend the booth all day, do my emails during the breaks and go to sleep around midnight. Given those intense days at a phyiscal event there is no need for an ice breaker I guess. I really never thought about it. In general, I like to talk to people because I like them—I hate talking to people “for a purpose only”

• How do you prepare for an online presentation?

  For me this is a pretty quick thing to do. Ideas form up in my head maybe months or years before things are presented.

  When it is time to make slides I am basically creating a “physical copy” of things I have dreamed up a lot earlier (usually this does not take more than an hour).

  Fortuntely, speaking does not require me to prepare. Too much preparation before public speaking is rather counter productive for me because I have to remember too many things in this case. Talking freely is a lot easier—it suits me better.

  The more spontaneous things are the better I tend to be. I can see why people prepare expensively but for me the exact opposite works better.

• Which book are you reading right now?

  “TISAX made easy”—TISAX is certification we need for the German car industry.

  I also read a book about flying around the globe in a small plane recently.

• What is your favorite hobby?

  At the moment I am spending a lot of time skiing, flying small airplanes (currently a Mooney M20K), hanging around in the garden and taking care of my dog (“Edgar”).

  Some time ago I also bought myself a piano which I like to play in the evenings. On top of that there is always something going on in my life (travel, new stuff, etc.). It is never boring.

  Life is way too short to do all there is to be done.

About the Talk

• What will your talk be about, exactly? Why this topic?

  It is about some performance things people have not seen in the past.

  Mostly people think the world works like this: “Changing parameters = Performance”.

  This is not true. The idea is to show others things that might be way more beneficial.

• What is the audience for your talk?

  Anybody who wants to work with PostgreSQL, really. And anybody who wants to know more than “just increase memory”.

• What existing knowledge should the attendee have?

  One should have used PostgreSQL at a reasonable level and one should be proficient with SQL.

• Which other talk at this year’s conference would you like to watch?

  I have not decided yet but I definitely want to see some of them.

  There are again some really good, competent speakers this year (as always).

  It is definitely important to listen what those people have to say.

• How do you balance technical depth with engaging storytelling in your conference presentations?

  I don’t know—is it a concious thing?

About PostgreSQL

• What inspired you to work with PostgreSQL?

  All got started with a pretty random event. Back in the old days I had to handle very specific date calculations. At that time some external consultant configured a firewall at the company I was working and I spoke to him for the sake of a conversation.

  He said: Just use PostgreSQL.

  Well, we tried… and got stuck—definitely stuck. This was in 1999. I have been using PostgreSQL ever since with passion.

  This was a random, unexpected, life changing event.

• What is your favorite PostgreSQL feature?

  Definitely “EXCLUDE USING gist”… this is by far my most favorite thing.

• What is the single thing that you think differentiates PostgreSQL most from other databases?

  Long term development. We are “community” and not “company” or “marketing” driven.

  This leads to good long term decisions and frees us from hurrying from quarter to quarter.

• What is your favorite PostgreSQL extension or tool? And why?

  That is a hard one. There is so much stuff out there.

  What I like is pg_permissions. It solves many many problems.

  It is not too well known but super super useful.

• What advice would you give to someone starting their journey with PostgreSQL?

  Keep learning, just keep learning.

  What is also important: Try to understand how the database works internally. It will help you to understand why things are the way they are.

• What are your favorite resources for learning about PostgreSQL?

  Currently I am learning a lot from the source code directly and by reading through the questions people ask on our CYBERTEC support portal.

  It shows what people really care about.

• Could you share a memorable experience or challenge you faced while working with PostgreSQL?

  Don’t get me started :)

• In your opinion, what are the most common pitfalls or mistakes developers make when working with PostgreSQL?

  Everybody assumes that there is a “performance = on” parameter. It does not exist and if it did? Which default value would you expect?

  Most problems arise when people forget to understand what really happens (or has to happen).

• Which skills are a must have for a PostgreSQL user/developer?

  Logical thinking is the key to everything.

• What is the most overlooked thing about PostgreSQL?

  It is the fact many many technologies are based on PostgreSQL and that it is not controlled by a single company.

• PostgreSQL is open-source, did that ever help you in anyway and how?

  It helps me every day.

  Without the source code many issues coming up in PostgreSQL support would be really really hard to understand or fix.

  I think beyond a certain level of professional support there is no life without source code.

• If you had a magic wand, what single thing would you change in PostgreSQL as it is today?

  This is a good question which I need to think about.

About POSETTE & Events

• Have you enjoyed previous POSETTE (formerly Citus Con) conferences, either as an attendee or as a speaker?

  I spoke last year. It was a really pleasant experience.

• What motivated you to speak at this year’s POSETTE: An Event for Postgres?

  The main thing: For some weird reason I like public speaking—mostly because of the feedback.

• What other PostgreSQL events in 2024 are you excited about?

  It is hard to pick one. There are so many good events.

• What advice would you give to fellow speakers preparing for a PostgreSQL conference?

  Pick a topic you really care about and which gives people new insights.

• What would be helpful for a first-time speaker?

  There are various things I keep telling my younger folks here at CYBERTEC:

  First of all there is nothing wrong with the fact that you don’t know everything—just admit that you don’t. This is fine. Telling somebody that you don’t know shows strength—not weakness.

  Then: Never get into an infight with your audience. If somebody asks question you are not comfortable with or which distracts things -> don’t answer. It is ok to say “let us discuss this later”.

  On stage just one person controls the agenda and this is the speaker. Don’t ever ever let other people control your agenda—your job is not to satisfy every single person (you never will)—your job is to make your presentation useful to as many people as possible. This can of course make some other people unhappy. Do not spoil the experience of 200 people because you want to please one person you don’t agree with.

• Could you share a memorable moment from a previous PostgreSQL conference you attended or spoke at?

  Some time ago somebody almost created a “shit storm” because I said in public that “we at CYBERTEC treat everybody equally” (meaning: you are not hired because you belong to a certain group but you are hired because you are competent).

  It really made me think. If “treating everybody equally and with respect” is not what one is supposed to do we might live in times I could not have imagined 15 years ago.