Thread: Using PostgreSQL As A Personal Database

After a friend's house recently caught fire, I decided that it would be
a good idea to catalog my comic collection (for insurance purposes if
nothing else). I estimate that I have some four hundred books and my
collection grows every month.

Since I prefer working at the Unix command line environment, my first
thought was to create a flat file text database and manage it with
command line tools, like grep, but as my collection grows I can envision
where it might be useful to maintain it in PostgreSQL.

So my question is: how much data needs to be stored before PostgreSQL is
worth the effort? Also, do people even use PostgreSQL at home for
personal, non-weblog stuff?



Thanks.

--
Jeff Flowers

Jeff,

We are definitely not using it for "weblog" stuff. We're building a logistics
software package with. I say it would be much easier to store your data in
postgres than a flat file. Since you are a "command line guy", psql offers a
very nice character based interface in which you can ealily retrieve your
data in all sorts of interesting ways using sql. As for trouble, I don't see
that as an issue. All you have to do is compile it, and configure rc.d to
start postmaster on boot, and create a table or two. It's easy.

Hope this helps...


On Monday 22 November 2004 02:55 pm, Jeff Flowers saith:
> After a friend's house recently caught fire, I decided that it would be
> a good idea to catalog my comic collection (for insurance purposes if
> nothing else). I estimate that I have some four hundred books and my
> collection grows every month.
>
> Since I prefer working at the Unix command line environment, my first
> thought was to create a flat file text database and manage it with
> command line tools, like grep, but as my collection grows I can envision
> where it might be useful to maintain it in PostgreSQL.
>
> So my question is: how much data needs to be stored before PostgreSQL is
> worth the effort? Also, do people even use PostgreSQL at home for
> personal, non-weblog stuff?
>
>
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Jeff Flowers
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives?
>
>                http://archives.postgresql.org

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On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:55:50 -0500, Jeff Flowers <duckfoo@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> So my question is: how much data needs to be stored before PostgreSQL is
> worth the effort? Also, do people even use PostgreSQL at home for
> personal, non-weblog stuff?

I use it for the wine cellar, recipes, bookmarks, cigars, funny quotes
from my two year old...

Depending on your platform, it is trivial to install (could be an apt-get away).

If I do get around to web-enabling the stuff it won't be a duplicate
effort, as everything is already in the database.  And if you are a
CLI junkie like myself, then using psql will not be an issue.

-- Mitch

On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 14:55:50 -0500,
  Jeff Flowers <duckfoo@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> So my question is: how much data needs to be stored before PostgreSQL is
> worth the effort? Also, do people even use PostgreSQL at home for
> personal, non-weblog stuff?

The amount of data isn't the main consideration. Postgres would be useful
if you wanted to have queries about you comic books use an index or if
there was some data about them that had rules you wanted enforced.

I would think it would be overkill to use postgres if you are just
occasionally adding the names to the list and will just want the whole
list if there is an accident.

Bruno Wolff III wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 14:55:50 -0500,
>   Jeff Flowers <duckfoo@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
>>So my question is: how much data needs to be stored before PostgreSQL is
>>worth the effort? Also, do people even use PostgreSQL at home for
>>personal, non-weblog stuff?
>
>
> The amount of data isn't the main consideration. Postgres would be useful
> if you wanted to have queries about you comic books use an index or if
> there was some data about them that had rules you wanted enforced.
>
> I would think it would be overkill to use postgres if you are just
> occasionally adding the names to the list and will just want the whole
> list if there is an accident.

That kind of collection, I suspect it would be nice to sort by:

title,
date,
value,

So I would suspect putting them into a database would prove to be quite
useful.

I've cataloged my toothpick collection in this way.

--
Until later, Geoffrey

Thanks for the replies. I figured that I couldn't be the only one to use
PostgreSQL for just personal data but there doesn't seem to a lot on the
web about this. Maybe people just aren't broadcasting their personal
use?

Since sending my initial email, I have installed PostgreSQL and it was
easy. I think that the psql application will work just fine for me as a
front-end, especially since it uses Readline for command editing. Now I
just need to draw out my table layout!


--
Jeff Flowers