Ha Ha Only Serious!

From religious wars to phuser via shamanism and tribes.

For over a decade, two fundamentally opposed doctrines have been locked in struggle. On the one hand, a modern dogma of cultural imperialism that wishes to impose its world view on those that refuse to conform, their aim being to make the world a better place for civilised society and global business. On the other, a disparate array of fanatics defies the oppressor’s might and somehow manages to inflict disproportionate damage and humiliation on those they are avowed to fight.

Windows vs Linux ?

Only joking. Of course I’m talking about something much more important. (No, not vi vs Emacs).

Wot no support contract?

It’s summer 2004, and I am considering which software platform we should use to host our new project, phuser.com. ‘ System Provisioning’ (a.k.a. ‘making it real’) of course covers many aspects, none of which I’m going to go into today.

One outcome of this was a choice of database. Social networking sites, even antidotes thereof, can’t get far without a database to power them. And so, to gloss over the whys and wherefores, it came to pass that I chose what claimed to be ‘The Most Advanced Open Source Database’. Happily the choice of PostgreSQL was founded on more than a strap-line, and in the intervening couple of years I have had every reason to be very satisfied with my original decision.

I look forward to writing more about that journey, but that too will have to wait. Today I’d like to relay one particular experience.