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Speaker photo for Jan Karremans

Interview with Jan Karremans

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Could you briefly introduce yourself?

My name is Jan Karremans and I have been involved with relational databases for over a quarter of a century. I have done 101 different roles around the database, ranging from application development to project management and from operations to sales.

How do you engage with the PostgreSQL Community?

My engagement with the PostgreSQL Community is primarily through advocacy. I am –and I still need to decide if it is fortunately or unfortunately– not a programmer, so I don’t really write code for Postgres. Helping promote Postgres, it’s heritage and it’s promises everywhere I come gives tremendous satisfaction and it appears to help…

Have you enjoyed previous PostgreSQL Europe conferences, either as an attendee or as a speaker? (PGConf.EU, FOSDEM PGDay, Nordic PGDay, pgDay Paris, PGConf.DE)

Yes, I have attended and spoken at many conferences, or I like to think it is a nice list. You can find that list on my website. What you will see it that I also continue to speak at non-Postgres conferences, as I think it is important to help spead the word as said above.

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

Our—as I will be co-hosting with Hettie Dombrovskaya—topic is about being smart about how you build applications. There have been many changes in how we approach applications over the last few decades that some of the best practicies of the old days have been forgotten… Nay, they have been rediculed. We will try to shed some new light on this.

This topic has been very near and dear to the both of us, independently… and now also jointly. It is not a topic many people really want to hear about, so controverse is expected!!

What is the audience for your talk?

I would like application developers and architects to really think about this topic. They are quite welcome indeed to come attend.

What existing knowledge should the attendee have?

There are no hard requirements, though having some practical understanding of what application development and business requirements are all about, might make good sense.

What is the one feature in PostgreSQL 15 which you like most?

I find it very hard to single out one feature that would be my favorite! Postgres develops in so many directions at the same time, which are all super important for Postgres’ future.

There is just one call I’d like to make, which is that we should safeguard not adding too many “knobs and buttons” to Postgres-base to make it do specific things. We have seen results of that backfiring with other solutions. I also think the Community has a good eye on that.

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

I am excited to go see the talk on “The Future of observability in Postgres” from Gergory Stark on Thursday morning.

Which measure, action, feature or activity would—in your eyes—help to accelerate the adoption of PostgreSQL?

For this, I have only one tip; let’s expand presenting on Postgres above and beyond Postgres conferences!