We've been pretty excited about this release to come for some time at Heroku as its loaded with great features. In addition to the JSON datatype here's a bit of a longer list of features that are pretty noteworthy in the release:<p>- Allow libpq connection strings to have the format of a URI<p>- Add a JSON data type<p>- Allow the planner to generate custom plans for specific parameter values even when using prepared statements<p>- Add the SP-GiST (Space-Partitioned GiST) index access method<p>- Add support for range data types<p>- Cancel queries if clients get disconnected<p>- Add CONCURRENTLY option to DROP INDEX<p>- Add a tcn (triggered change notification) module to generate NOTIFY events on table changes<p>- Allow pg_stat_statements to aggregate similar queries via SQL<p>- text normalization. Users with applications that use non-parameterized SQL will now be able to monitor query performance without detailed log analysis.
Since postgres has basic json type support now, and PL/Javascript exists, it's only a matter of time until an extension appears that lets you deploy javascript applications directly to the database.<p>Who needs CouchDB or Node.js when you can just say CREATE EXTENSION 'couchnodegres.js'
I am actually pretty excited about the native JSON support, and overall I am a huge fan of Postgres, but this is the most press-release-y press release ever* . By that I mean that the quotes are way too "perfect", the kind you only see in press releases. Some PR or marketing guy wrote them then showed them to the person to whom they'd be attributed to get their ok. Nothing inherently wrong with it, just struck me as funny.<p>* having written more than my share of press releases in my time
My two favorite features are not so high on the PR docs though.<p>The first is SECURITY BARRIER and LEAKPROOF which gives us an ability to rethink how to multi-tenant applications. This is a game changer and will get even better in future versions I am sure.<p>The second is NO INHERIT constraints, which I will certainly be making good use of. It is also a complete game changer when it comes to table inheritance and partitioning, and my main use will be things like CHECK (false) NOINHERIT to ensure that a table in fact never has rows of its own.<p>There is an amazing amount of good stuff going on around Postgres right now. Postgres-XC was recently released, and more. It is an amazing data modelling platform and ORDBMS.
I'm always impressed by the PostgreSQL team.<p>Personally, I'm excited about the range types and I can see immediate usefulness for them. My own applications aside, anything that helps developers create schemas that are better able to handle temporal data is a good thing.
I was expecting the json support, but SP-GiST is a very welcome surprise. <a href="http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/spgist-intro.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/spgist-intro.html</a><p>User-extensible spacial index types. This makes Postgres perfect for online machine learning.
direct link to what's new: <a href="http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What%27s_new_in_PostgreSQL_9.2" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What%27s_new_in_PostgreSQL_9...</a>
Now someone please make usable tools for it on OSX.
Postgres badly needs front-end tools of the quality of sequel pro.<p>I am a huge fan of Postgres, it's never let me down. But data exploration, ad hoc querying and such is a pain in psql. These tools are badly needed.
"PostgreSQL 9.2 will ship with native JSON support, covering indexes, replication and performance improvements, and many more features. We are eagerly awaiting this release and will make it available in Early Access as soon as it’s released by the PostgreSQL community," said Ines Sombra, Lead Data Engineer, Engine Yard.
One thing I love about PostgreSQL development is all the small nice fixes added in every version.<p>Of the small fixes in 9.1 my personal favorite is probably the cleanup of pg_stat_activity. There are also many other nice small fixes like improved tab completion for some commands and the ability to set environment variables in psql.
We are excited about Cascading Replication because it reduces network data transfer over WAN when we have multiple Read Replicas within and across datacenters.