Top all-time · #3093
Paul Ramsey
Personal blog · blog.cleverelephant.cadataprogramming
Paul Ramsey's personal blog at blog.cleverelephant.ca covers data and programming. Since 2011, 25 different Hacker News readers have linked it 28 times, most often “PostGIS at 20, the Beginning”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-03-10, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Paul Ramsey's PostGIS and PostgreSQL writing on query tuning, parallel queries, spatial indexing, and open source, plus his talks. Mostly cited as sources.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
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Most-linked posts?
- PostGIS at 20, the Beginning2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-05-31
- Open Source Gets Old(er) – (Paul Ramsey Keynote FOSS4G NA 2019)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-05-20
What Hacker News says?
> A wildcard at the end can use a regular (btree) index. depending on the locale your db is in, it might be a little less "regular". recently fell in that trap. http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/2016/08/pgsql-text-pattern-ops...
Comment linking /2016/08/pgsql-text-pattern-ops.html
on “Ways to Tweak Slow SQL Queries”Submitted PostGIS at 20, the Beginning as a story · 302 points
HN discussionA couple of excellent GIS related links I would recommend to anyone interested in this area. Talks and writing by PostGIS co-creator Paul Ramsey (who is incredible): http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/writings The mapscaping podcast - a lot of intros to the complex and overlapping worlds of GIS: https://mapscaping.com/blogs/the-mapscaping-podcast
Comment linking /writings
on “PostGIS – Spatial and Geographic Objects for PostgreSQL”Submitted PostGIS Polygon Splitting as a story · 6 points
HN discussiondo you have to do much tuning to trigger parallel queries? i'm also trying to do this with PostGIS, and it looks like you kind of have to tweak costs and fiddle with things a fair amount to get parallel queries to trigger: http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/2018/09/parallel-postgis-3.htm...
Comment linking /2018/09/parallel-postgis-3.html
on “Using parallel sequential scan in PostgreSQL”Submitted Learning Postgres Internals as a story · 5 points
HN discussionOSM uses postgres: http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/2009/04/openstreetmap-moves-to...
Comment linking /2009/04/openstreetmap-moves-to-postgresql.html?m=1
on “Craigslist is on board: OpenStreetMap soars to new heights”Submitted (Who Will Be) America's Next Big Mapping Company? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionthat's essentially the route that Mapbox went down and they've even invented an entire mbtiles file format that essentially is just a sqlite db for doing these kinds of queries on the server it's the "status quo" approach today in the industry, but it has some downsides still especially for smaller builders (ie me): 1. i'd have to run a separate tile server to take in the tile requests and convert them to "sql" requ…
Comment linking /2015/02/geotiff-compression-for-dummies.html
on “Using Lidar to map tree shadows”Submitted PostGIS at 20: The Beginning as a story · 3 points
HN discussionPeople exist who do open source for a living outside the open core bubble. Take a listen to this video [0] from Paul Ramsey who has built a successful career working on PostGIS (database for geospatial information). It covers his thoughts on the future of open source (spoiler: its not open core). [0] http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/2019/05/foss4g-keynote-2019.ht...
Comment linking /2019/05/foss4g-keynote-2019.html
on “The Incompatibility of Open Core and Profit”Submitted Thoughts about Mapbox GL JS moving to a NON-OS License as a story · 3 points
HN discussionESRI is a scourge on the GIS industry. One of the creators of postgis can say it much better than I can. https://blog.cleverelephant.ca/2018/11/esri-dominates.html
Comment linking /2018/11/esri-dominates.html
on “QGIS is the mapping software you didn't know you needed”Submitted Developer Diary 2 on PostGIS, Performance, & Porting as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Learning PostgreSQL Internals as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted What You Need to Know as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Open Source GIS Fights the Three-Horned Monster (2002) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Paul Ramsey: How I Make Jeff Richer as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Parallel PostGIS and PgSQL 12 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Esri and Winning as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted NoNoSQL (2010) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted ST_Subdivide All the Things · Paul Ramsey as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted ST_Subdivide All the Things (2019) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Changing the Direction of Government IT as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Open Source Gets Old(er) – (Paul Ramsey Keynote FOSS4G NA 2019) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted That's not a strategic plan as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted British Columbia electoral districts: a programmer's take as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Do It In-House as a story · 1 points
HN discussion