Speaker Interview

Stefanie Janine Stölting

Hi! Could you briefly introduce yourself?

I am Stefanie Janine Stölting. When I started using and working with databases, there was no Linux, no open source database at all in the early 1980s, though, I worked with Oracle, Sybase, and some other now not even existing database products.

The first time I discovered PostgreSQL was end of 1998, I was looking for an open source database to use it for my private projects. Even at that early time it was worth trying.

It took about ten years until I had my first commercial project using PostgreSQL. Currently I’m a self employed consultant for Database applications.

How do you engage with the PostgreSQL community?

My first conference was the PGConf in Ottawa in 2008. From than on I started to attend open source conferences regularly and later on became a member of PostgreSQL Europe.

Have you enjoyed previous pgDay Paris or other PostgreSQL Europe conferences, either as attendee or as speaker?

It’s my first time at the pgDay Paris conference, but I attended several PostgreSQL related conferences all over Europe, either as attendee or as speaker.

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

I will talk about what one is able to do with Foreign Data Wrappers. You will learn, that there is really no datasource, that you can’t query transparently from PostgreSQL.

Why this? It’s cool and you can implement stuff, that would cost you a lot of development time otherwise.

What is the audience for your talk?

Everyone dealing with more than one datasource.

What existing knowledge should the attendee have in order to follow your talk?

Basic SQL knowledge is all you will need to follow my talk.

Which missing feature would you most like to see in PostgreSQL?

I would love to see Time Travel implemented into PostgreSQL. That’s very useful in BI systems. When Postgres has been started by Michael Stonebraker it was already on the list of features. It has been removed in version 6.2.

Thank you!