[Courses] Posgres course Introductory Assignment
Joyce Johnston
jejohnston2006 at yahoo.com
Tue Nov 20 14:50:28 UTC 2007
Hello!
I am just finishing up a 2-year degree in web programming. The courses I took covered MySQL, Oracle, and MS Access(!). I've used MySQL quite a bit in work I've done, but have very little practical experience with other DBMS's. I decided to sign up for this course because I've heard positive things about Postgres, but have never had any exposure to it.
I've got a couple of projects in mind, but the web hosting company I am using at present supports MySQL only. Does anyone know a good, inexpensive host that offers Postgres?
--Joyce
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Today's Topics:
1. Moodle log-in from chix-site? (maria rahman-alsema)
2. PostgreSQL Course: Getting Started ?s (sbl)
3. Re: PostgreSQL Course: Getting Started ?s (Akkana Peck)
4. Re: PostgreSQL Course: Getting Started ?s (Liz Young)
5. Re: PostgreSQL Course: can't log in
(mgmonza at faeroes.freeshell.org)
6. [Postgresql] Hi, and welcome to the course (Michelle M)
7. [Postgresql] What is PostgreSQL? (Michelle M)
8. [Postgresql] IRC Chat times (Michelle M)
9. Re: [Postgresql] What is PostgreSQL? (Julia Christianson)
10. [Postgresql] Assignment Week 1, Introductions (maiki)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:59:15 +0100
From: "maria rahman-alsema"
Subject: [Courses] Moodle log-in from chix-site?
To: courses at linuxchix.org
Message-ID:
<754ee5e20711191159l54750574v2b8e51d140c20206 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Hi,
After googling for moodle, I visited the web-site and installed
moodle on my pc. Am now following their "features-course", Perhaps
this will be sufficient to learn using it.
My question is about the log-in at moodle from the Linuxchix-site. As
we were told in a mail, the moodle log-in is not working, I'm being
linked to my view-page every time.
Can we follow postgresql by logging in directly to moodle? Or is it
necessary to use the chix-site as an "in-between"?
Looking forward to todays first lesson :)
Maria
--
"Love for All, Hatred for None"
Please see: http://maria-n.Writing.Com/
--
"Love for All, Hatred for None"
Please see: http://maria-n.Writing.Com/
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:30:27 -0500
From: sbl
Subject: [Courses] PostgreSQL Course: Getting Started ?s
To: courses at linuxchix.org
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
Hello there.
I am looking forward to this course and have been trying to get
accustomed to the email communication format
and understand just what moodle is. It is unclear to me whether there
is something funky w/ my setup.
I currently go to the moodle page via a link
(http://www.linuxchix.org/using-postgresql.html) and all I see is a
status page that puts me on the "view" tab which is telling me I have
been a member for 1 week 5 hours.
I haven't seen any course postings, a daily email digest or any other
info for a couple of days. Can anyone
tell me if I am missing something here and what I might do to correct
it.
Also, I was wondering if there was an archive of the mailing list for
this course that we could read online versus
reading it only when it shows up in our email box.
Look forward to being in class with everyone,
Thanks,
Stephanie
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:26:52 -0800
From: Akkana Peck
Subject: Re: [Courses] PostgreSQL Course: Getting Started ?s
To: courses at linuxchix.org
Message-ID: <20071119232652.GE32657 at shallowsky.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
sbl writes:
> Also, I was wondering if there was an archive of the mailing list for
> this course that we could read online versus
> reading it only when it shows up in our email box.
Indeed there is. Just check the footers to any posting on this list
for a link to the list's info page, which includes the archives:
> _______________________________________________
> Courses mailing list
> Courses at linuxchix.org
> http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/courses
About Moodle, I'm guessing it will be fairly clear how to use
it once the course gets started (if not, maybe we can share tips
here), but right now I think we're still waiting for word from our
Moodle administrators on the problems people are having logging in.
...Akkana
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:01:05 -0800
From: Liz Young
Subject: Re: [Courses] PostgreSQL Course: Getting Started ?s
To: courses at linuxchix.org
Message-ID: <200711191601.05833.liz at kandew.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Hi,
On Monday 19 November 2007 14:30:27 sbl wrote:
> I currently go to the moodle page via a link
> (http://www.linuxchix.org/using-postgresql.html) and all I see is a
> status page that puts me on the "view" tab which is telling me I have
> been a member for 1 week 5 hours.
Try this... Click on Courses on the left, and then under Current Courses,
Using Postgresql. That page has a link to the moodle page (toward the
bottom).
http://courses.linuxchix.org/course/view.php?id=5
> I haven't seen any course postings, a daily email digest or any other
> info for a couple of days. Can anyone
> tell me if I am missing something here and what I might do to correct
> it.
To start, I am reading the Wikipedia page about Postgresql. I have also been
lurking the pg newsgroups via gmane; gmane.comp.db.postgresql.general
and .novice. I really like the tone of those groups, but wish I could
understand what they were talking about, ha ha!
> Look forward to being in class with everyone,
Me too.
-Liz
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:46:15 +0000 (UTC)
From: mgmonza at faeroes.freeshell.org
Subject: Re: [Courses] PostgreSQL Course: can't log in
To: Akkana Peck
Cc: courses at linuxchix.org
Message-ID:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
Sorry to post to the whole list but didn't see where to send this. The
course sign-in page keeps rejectiing my user name and password. The user
name is my email address and the password is the one sent with the
confirmation email.
Anyone know what's going on with this? Thank you.
K.
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:17:15 -0500
From: Michelle M
Subject: [Courses] [Postgresql] Hi, and welcome to the course
To: courses at linuxchix.org
Message-ID: <474243AB.2010109 at murrain.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Hi all,
Sorry this first post is late. It's been a hectic day (and, I know for
some of you, it's Tuesday already.)
Today's content will be in two posts. This one, which is an introduction
and logistics, and then the first actual post about PostgreSQL.
Course participation
You can participate in this course in many different ways, whatever
suits your needs. Follow all of the course, or just parts. Just lurk, or
dive in and ask questions. Contribute your own experience if you know
stuff about PostgreSQL and databases.
The course will primarily happen on the list. Because of the login
issues with Moodle at this time, I don't think it makes sense to try and
focus too much effort on Moodle - so it will be happening in parallel.
You might miss some comments or questions if you never log into Moodle,
but you won't miss any content or assignments.
The moodle page is: http://courses.linuxchix.org
If you can't log into Moodle, it's NOT YOUR FAULT. There is a bug. One
thing to try is to log out of the Linuxchix site, then go back to the
Moodle page, and log in again. But apparently some people are never able
to log in.
The archives of this course are on the basic courses list archive:
http://mailman.linuxchix.org/pipermail/courses/
There will be (usually weekly) IRC chats. Also, I hang out on the
linuxchix irc server a fair bit (irc.linuxchix.org). Join channel #courses.
Course Pace
This is 14 weeks, and I'll try to post each lesson on Monday or Tuesday
of each week. I've tried to make it manageable chunks. You won't become
an expert PG administrator or database designer from this course, but I
hope it will be a good solid beginning.
I will have concrete assignments each week. You can do as much of them
or as little of them as you'd like, of course.
No question is dumb. Ask anything! And, if you know the answer, feel
free to give it. Don't wait for me.
OK, Onward!
Peace,
Michelle
--
Michelle Murrain
michelle at murrain.net
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:26:11 -0500
From: Michelle M
Subject: [Courses] [Postgresql] What is PostgreSQL?
To: courses at linuxchix.org
Message-ID: <474245C3.5040102 at murrain.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
What is Postgresql, why is it worth using? Check out the main PG site:
http://www.postgresql.org
Wikipedia, of course, has a great entry on PostgreSQL, which is
definitely worth a detailed read. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postgresql)
PostgreSQL is a relational database system that is quite powerful. It
has been around for a while, as the wikipedia article talks about.
PostgreSQL is ACID compliant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACID), and
has been that way long before MySQL was. ACID compliance means that a
database makes sure that transactions occur reliably. This includes:
Atomicity - the database system will do all of the tasks in a
transaction, or none of them
Consistency - integrity constraints are kept
Isolation - tasks outside a transaction can never see data in an
intermediate state
Durability - once a transaction is complete, it persists.
PostgreSQL has lots of interesting and useful features, which we'll talk
about over the course of the next 14 weeks.
I chose PG years ago because it was a more robust, secure, and feature
rich DBMS system at the time I was evaluating it in comparison to MySQL.
MySQL has definitely caught up. But I'm still partial to PG.
Lots of open source CMS and other systems support PG.
PG is cross-platform. We'll focus on installing and using it in Linux
(we are, after all, Linuxchix), but next week, I will give some details
about how to install it on other platforms.
Assignment for the week (this is also on Moodle). Due by Sunday (just to
keep the flow of the course going well)
I have two questions for you to send in your answers to the list, if you
wish:
- Give us a brief intro to yourself, and why you are taking this course
- If you haven't already, think of a concrete project you'd like to use
PG with. Share with us a brief synopsis of the project: the problem, the
platform, the approach you'll think you'll take, and why you think PG
might be a good fit. It should be something that will be fun, and
perhaps a bit challenging for you.
The project is important. It's been my experience that it's much easier
to learn something when you have a concrete need, than just doing
something in the abstract.
Next Week:
Installing PG on multiple platforms
Peace,
Michelle
--
Michelle Murrain
michelle at murrain.net
http://www.murrain.net
Blog: http://www.metacentricities.com
Skype: pearlbear
AIM: pearlbear0
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:30:26 -0500
From: Michelle M
Subject: [Courses] [Postgresql] IRC Chat times
To: courses at linuxchix.org
Message-ID: <474246C2.4060705 at murrain.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Hi all,
First off, I want to heartily apologize to those of you who are on the
other side of the planet as me. I will try my best to vary some of the
times of the chats, but invariably, most of them will happen when some
of you are asleep.
Also, because of some extenuating circumstances (this week being US
Thanksgiving, and next week I'm travelling to Europe) there won't be any
scheduled chats. I'll try to hang out in the #courses channel some, but
we'll get to the regular chats during week 3.
Peace,
Michelle
--
Michelle Murrain
michelle at murrain.net
http://www.murrain.net
Blog: http://www.metacentricities.com
Skype: pearlbear
AIM: pearlbear0
------------------------------
Message: 9
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:06:31 -0500
From: Julia Christianson
Subject: Re: [Courses] [Postgresql] What is PostgreSQL?
To: michelle at murrain.net
Cc: courses at linuxchix.org
Message-ID: <47426B57.1050105 at patriot.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Michelle M wrote:
> I have two questions for you to send in your answers to the list, if you
> wish:
>
> - Give us a brief intro to yourself, and why you are taking this course
> - If you haven't already, think of a concrete project you'd like to use
> PG with. Share with us a brief synopsis of the project: the problem, the
> platform, the approach you'll think you'll take, and why you think PG
> might be a good fit.
Well, I just discovered this course a couple hours ago so perhaps it's
fitting that I should go first.
I've been playing with computers since 1980, and with Linux since 1998
-- Red Hat flavors almost exclusively. I work for a non-profit
organization, and we are using postgres for our organizational
databases and billable-hour tracking (custom postgres + PHP); we're
also using it as the database with sql-ledger, the FOSS business
accounting program, which we hope to bring into production by January.
So I'm pretty familiar with installing and configuring postgres, and
I can use psql but really only with operations that our programmer has
shown me how to do. I'd like to learn more SQL, and I'm sure I could
stand to learn more about proper administration too.
For a project, the platform would be CentOS 5.0, Postgres 8.x (and
ultimately Apache and PHP). I might do a database of the company's
computers; I'm currently tracking them in a spreadsheet. I'd like to
be able to more easily extract various subsets of the data, but it's
really not very relational, so it might be better to pick something
more challenging. We also need to get our staff database (about 4
tables) into postgres, but that would need to interface with the
existing system and might be too complex. (Comments welcome.)
-- Julia
------------------------------
Message: 10
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:39:24 -0800
From: maiki
Subject: [Courses] [Postgresql] Assignment Week 1, Introductions
To: courses at linuxchix.org
Message-ID: <4742B95C.6070109 at interi.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
I am maiki. I design and develop web sites and applications for lots of
folks, but my favorite projects are for non-profit organizations and
friends. I am concerned about technology education, copyright, privacy,
and culture, all of which make it into nearly everything I do. I also
study child development, because everything starts there.
I am using this opportunity to learn more about databases in general. I
use MySQL frequently, but I have thus far been able to dodge actually
learning much about it. I want to understand the tech underneath, and I
think Postgres is pretty nifty.
My main weakness is never turning off my brain, so I can think of
projects covering all kinds of things, but I don't have anything in mind
coming into this. I figure I would latch on to someone else's project =)
. I am currently setting up a couple of large sites for fun (and one to
make ends meet). If I were to think about it, I think I would like to a
database-driven webapp to compare hardware profiles. My thinking is that
one could create a standardized XML document type to hold hardware and
software information, and then they could upload it to a central place
to compare compatibility between components with everyone else. So, if
you wanted to buy a new harddrive or something, you upload your
computer's stats and it searches for problems. Also, this could be used
in support cases, where one could link to their computer's profile in a
manufacturer's support forums, for instance.
I think PG would be good for this because the data gets more interesting
and useful the more there is, and we get some very old hardware, so it
would have to last, and I have heard that is something it is good at,
very large datasets.
I have no idea what that means. ^_^
I have used Moodle before, and have created a course on blogging for
beginners, so please feel free to ask any questions about either of
those things. I am very grateful that this is being offered, since it is
exactly what I wanted to know about, and I look forward to discussing
stuff with ya'll.
maiki
http://interi.org
------------------------------
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