At our last Philly PUG meeting, I saw something really cool. For over 75% of the attendees, it was their first PUG meeting. After the meeting, when we had a chance to talk, I found out why. They were pretty new to PostgreSQL and the topic was something that wasn’t intimating. When I asked further what they meant by that, they said our last few topics seemed pretty intense for them. Looking back at the topics which were about Postgres-XC and scaling with PL/Proxy at MeetMe, I can understand what they meant. When we did an introduction to PostgreSQL Data Types, it was at the right level for them to feel comfortable.
Going forward, I want to encourage more people new to PostgreSQL to attend the local PUG meetings with a “Getting to Know PostgreSQL” series of talks. I’d want to do them at least once a quarter mixed in with some of the other more advanced talks to try to cater to a wide audience. In the end, we should have a pretty good set of presentations that anyone with some moderate PostgreSQL experience can give.