--- title: "How to become a Postgres contributor" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 411 published_at: "2021-06-23" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/411" --- Plus getting a grip on what 1NF means. | #​411 — June 23, 2021 [Web Version](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/411) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60/lkidgg7yr6w7lujy2qb3.jpg)](https://blog.crunchydata.com/blog/better-range-types-in-postgres-14-turning-100-lines-of-sql-into-3) [Better Range Types in Postgres 14: Turning 100 Lines of SQL Into 3](https://blog.crunchydata.com/blog/better-range-types-in-postgres-14-turning-100-lines-of-sql-into-3) — I’m always going to take fewer lines of code rather than more, so I was won over by the title alone. It turns out the forthcoming Postgres 14 adds support for multi range types which provides extra power to some pure SQL solutions.. an example of which is provided here. Jonathan S. Katz [How (and Why) to Become a Postgres Contributor](https://blog.timescale.com/blog/how-and-why-to-become-a-postgresql-contributor/) — A “collection of advice” to help anyone keen to make the jump from having never contributed to contributing just a little. The keys are to learn about the development process, setting up a dev environment for Postgres on your local machine, and biting off something very small. Aleksander Alekseev [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/0664d572.png)](https://retool.com/?ref=cooperpress) [Build Internal Apps (Faster) on Top of Postgres](https://retool.com/?ref=cooperpress) — Build internal apps without the mundane, boring bits (wrestling w/ UI libraries or hacking together data sources & APIs). Retool sponsor **IN BRIEF:** - [A quick Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/benbarbersmith/status/1405918576091926528) on how a developer sped up his slowest queries by 'over 100x' after a migration from Firebase to Postgres. - [pgCenter 0.9.0](https://dataegret.com/2021/06/upgrade-pgcenter-0-9-0-is-out/) has been released. pgCenter is a command line tool for observing and troubleshooting Postgres, written in Go. [A New Kind of Database: Combining Postgres and Citus Tables](https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2021/06/18/foreign-keys-between-local-ref-tables/) — Citus is commonly used to make Postgres more distributed and scalable but you still get to enjoy all of Postgres’s usual features and even blend them together. This post digs into Citus 10’s support for foreign keys between local Postgres tables and Citus _reference tables._ Onur Tirtir (Citus Data) [From MD5 to SCRAM-SHA-256](https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/from-md5-to-scram-sha-256-in-postgresql/) — Postgres 10 and beyond support the `scram-sha-256` mechanism for password hashing and authentication, although you might well still be using MD5. This post touches on the benefits and approach to switching. Laurenz Albe [Talking about the Postgres Optimizer at CMU](http://rhaas.blogspot.com/2021/06/talking-about-postgresql-optimizer-at.html) — Last week we featured Robert Haas’s [recent talk about Postgres’s query optimizer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA3SBgcZwtE&list=PLSE8ODhjZXjbeqnfuvp30VrI7VXiFuOXS&index=20) but he’s written up some notes on particular parts of the talk if you didn’t have to time to watch it all. Robert Haas [▶️ Creating Sample Postgres Data: What Are Your Options?](https://tsdb.co/sample-data-playlist) — [Watch this short how-to video series](https://tsdb.co/sample-data-playlist) for 4 ways to generate realistic sample data for benchmarking, demos & beyond 🚀 Timescale sponsor [Zero-Downtime 'Schema Migrations' in Postgres using Views](https://fabianlindfors.se/blog/schema-migrations-in-postgres/) — It’s not _exactly_ a classical sort of migration but.. it's an interesting line of thought. Fabian Lindfors [Logging Tips for Postgres, Featuring Your Slow Queries](https://blog.crunchydata.com/blog/tentative-crunchy-bridge-integration-with-logdna) — A look at a useful log-related setting (`log_min_duration_statement`) to help identify performance issues. A lot of the post is about Crunchy and LogDNA, though, so you may [prefer the logging settings docs.](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/13/runtime-config-logging.html#RUNTIME-CONFIG-LOGGING-WHEN) Kat Batuigas [pg_notify_exporter: A Listen/Notify Exporter for Prometheus](https://github.com/hmolinab/pg_notify_exporter) — Uses [LISTEN/NOTIFY](https://tapoueh.org/blog/2018/07/postgresql-listen-notify/) to export to Prometheus events triggered in table operations (`INSERT`, `UPDATE` and `DELETE`). hmolinab **Got a new email?** You can [change your address here](https://postgresweekly.com/edit_subscription/*|UID|*). --- **Bored of us?** [Click here to stop getting Postgres Weekly](https://postgresweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*). --- **Got a link for us?** Reply and tell us. We can't include everything but we'll look at anything you send. Thanks! --- **Want more?** You might like [DB Weekly](https://dbweekly.com/?utm_source=pg&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=footer-promo), our more general database newsletter covering data storage trends, new database types, and more. --- Published by Cooper Press Ltd. Fairfield Enterprise Centre, Louth, LN11 0LS, United Kingdom Postgres, PostgreSQL and the Slonik Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of the PostgreSQL Community Association of Canada. [Stop getting this newsletter.](https://postgresweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*)