I’ve been working professionally for the better part of a decade on web apps and, in that time, I’ve had to learn how to use a lot of different systems and tools. During that education, I found that the official documentation typically proved to be the most helpful.

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Learn about essential tips and practices for working with Postgres that aren't always clear from the documentation. Covers topics like data normalization, useful psql shortcuts, handling NULLs, the importance of indexing, and managing locks. Also addresses the use of JSONB for flexible data storage and the potential pitfalls of long-running transactions.

What I Wish Someone Told Me About Postgres

Normalize your data unless you have a good reason not to

Follow all the advice from the folks that make Postgres

It’s possible that adding an index will do nothing (particularly if it’s misconfigured)

Long-held locks can break your app (even ACCESS SHARE )

<p>Postgres is the swish army knife of databases. It can do anything but excels only in certain use cases. If you need a dynamic jsonb based schema you’re better off with mongodb. If you don’t need a dynamic schema and you’re doing mostly reads, sqlite might be a better choice, etc.</p>
