postgres-intro

Question 1

What is PostgreSQL and what are some alternative relational databases?

Answer 1

PostgreSQL is a powerful, free, open source relational database management system (RDBMS). Alternative relational databases include MySQL, SQL Server by Microsoft, and Oracle by Oracle Corporation.

Question 2

What are some advantages of learning a relational database?

Answer 2

A relational database is a good choice for storing related data, such as data about students, teachers, and courses. A relational database can store and modify data in a way that makes data corruption highly unlikely. It allows developers to set up their database to reject bad data or data being “half written”.
Another major advantage of learning a relational database is that they use almost the same language (SQL language). So learning one relational database makes it easier to learn about the many other relational databases.

Question 3

What is one way to see if PostgreSQL is running?

Answer 3

Typing “top” in one terminal, then typing “sudo service postgresql status” in the other terminal.