Database on Vonng

Did AI Rewrite PostgreSQL in Rust? Not Quite

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

pgrust’s clean-room rewrite failed. Its mechanical port passed. The difference shows what AI can copy—and what it cannot.

Fifty Years of Love and War: File Systems, Databases, and the Agent-Era Storage Endgame

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

File systems and databases have spent fifty years fighting and borrowing from each other. The agent era may seem to put file systems back on top, but the real winner may be databases that learn to speak the file system’s dialect: models provide understanding, databases provide guarantees, and discovery comes from a protocol layer where ls works on everything.

MySQL 9.7: Same Old Leftovers, Reheated

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

MySQL 9.7 is the first LTS release in the 9.x line. Its vector support is still all show, its years-late optimizer is disabled by default, and three years of Innovation Releases have produced remarkably little.

The Three-Way Endgame: Why Agent Memory Frameworks Are a Dead End

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A cold shower for the red-hot agent memory market—not because agents do not need memory, but because memory is the endgame moat. That moat belongs to models, harnesses, and databases, not today’s “memory frameworks.”

Why PostgreSQL Won in the AI Era

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Boring technology won the wildest era. A look at extensibility, agent choice, database cloning, and the future of the DBA.

Put Your AI Agent's State in a Database

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Put an AI agent’s working directory, configuration, and memory on a PGFS mount, and you are effectively storing its state in PostgreSQL. That gives you not only a PITR “time machine,” but also a shared workspace and shared memory for multiple agents across multiple devices.

I Finished Translating the Second Edition of DDIA: An Eight-Year Parable About AI

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Codex translated DDIA’s second edition in a single morning. Eight years ago, I spent three months translating the first edition by hand. The contrast reveals just how far AI has come.

New Programmers in the AI Era: Where Do You Go?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sun, 01 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Should we still hire fresh grads? Squeezed between AI and senior devs, what’s the play for new programmers? Master the right tools, take initiative, find the right mentor.

Data 2025: The year in review with Mike Stonebraker

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A conversation between Mike Stonebraker (MIT CSAIL, Turing Award Winner, Creator of PostgreSQL), Andy Pavlo (Carnegie Mellon University), and the DBOS team.

What Kind of Database Do AI Agents Need?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The bottleneck for AI agents is not the database kernel, but integration above it. Muscle memory (in-database computation), associative memory (vector-graph fusion), and the courage to experiment (Git for Data) will be critical—none of them requires a new engine.

MySQL and Baijiu: The Internet’s Obedience Test

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

MySQL is to the internet what baijiu is to China: harsh, hard to swallow, yet worshipped because culture demands obedience. Both are loyalty tests—will you endure discomfort to fit in?

MinIO Is Dead. Who Picks Up the Pieces?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

MinIO just entered maintenance mode. What replaces it? Can RustFS step in? I tested the contenders so you don’t have to.

MinIO is Dead

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

MinIO announces it is entering maintenance mode, the dragon-slayer has become the dragon – how MinIO transformed from an open-source S3 alternative to just another commercial software company

Why PostgreSQL Will Dominate the AI Era

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Context window economics, the polyglot persistence problem, and the triumph of zero-glue architecture make PostgreSQL the database king of the AI era.

Column: Database Guru

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The database world is full of hype and marketing fog. This column cuts through it with blunt commentary, case studies, and technical deep dives.

Dongchedi Just Exposed “Smart Driving.” Where’s Our Dongku-Di?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Imagine a “closed-course” shootout for domestic databases and clouds, the way Dongchedi just humiliated 30+ autonomous cars. This industry needs its own stress test.

Google AI Toolbox: Production-Ready Database MCP is Here?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Google recently launched a database MCP toolbox, perhaps the first production-ready solution.

Where Will Databases and DBAs Go in the AI Era?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Who will be revolutionized first - OLTP or OLAP? Integration vs specialization, how to choose? Where will DBAs go in the AI era? Feng’s views from the HOW 2025 conference roundtable, organized and published.

Stop Arguing, The AI Era Database Has Been Settled

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The database for the AI era has been settled. Capital markets are making intensive moves on PostgreSQL targets, with PG having become the default database for the AI era.

How Many Shops Has etcd Torched?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Wed, 07 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Plenty. If you’re rolling your own Kubernetes, odds are you’ll crash because etcd ships with a 2 GB time bomb.

In the AI Era, Software Starts at the Database

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Future software = Agent + Database. No middle tiers, just agents issuing CRUD. Database skills age well, and PostgreSQL is poised to be the agent-era default.

MySQL vs. PostgreSQL @ 2025

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A 2025 reality check on where PostgreSQL stands relative to MySQL across features, performance, quality, and ecosystem.

Database Planet Collision: When PG Falls for DuckDB

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

If you ask me, we’re on the brink of a cosmic collision in database-land, and Postgres + DuckDB is the meteor we should all be watching.

Comparing Oracle and PostgreSQL Transaction Systems

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The PG community has started punching up: Cybertec’s Laurenz Albe breaks down how Oracle’s transaction system stacks against PostgreSQL.

7 Databases in 7 Weeks (2025)

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Is PostgreSQL the king of boring databases? Here are seven databases worth studying in 2025: PostgreSQL, SQLite, DuckDB, ClickHouse, FoundationDB, TigerBeetle, and CockroachDB—each deserving a week of deep exploration.

Solving the 24-Point Card Game with a Single SQL Query

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A fun but devious challenge: solve the 24-point card game in SQL. Here is the PostgreSQL answer.

Self-Hosting Supabase on PostgreSQL

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Supabase is great, own your own Supabase is even better. A tutorial for self-hosting production-grade supabase on local/cloud/ VM/BMs.

Optimize Bio Cores First, CPU Cores Second

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sat, 07 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Programmers are expensive, scarce biological computing cores, the anchor point of software costs — please prioritize optimizing biological cores before optimizing CPU cores.

MongoDB: Now Powered by PostgreSQL?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

MongoDB 3.2’s analytics subsystem turned out to be an embedded PostgreSQL database? A whistleblowing story from MongoDB’s partner about betrayal and disillusionment.

Can Chinese Domestic Databases Really Compete?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Friends often ask me, can Chinese domestic databases really compete? To be honest, it’s a question that offends people. So let’s try speaking with data - I hope the charts provided in this article can help readers understand the database ecosystem landscape and establish more accurate proportional awareness.

The $20 Brother PolarDB: What Should Databases Actually Cost?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Today we discuss the fair pricing of commercial databases, open-source databases, cloud databases, and domestic Chinese databases.

Redis Going Non-Open-Source is a Disgrace to "Open-Source" and Public Cloud

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Redis “going non-open source” is not a disgrace to Redis, but a disgrace to “open source/OSI” and even more so to public cloud. What truly matters has always been software freedom, while open source is just one means to achieve software freedom.

MySQL's ACID is a real mess

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

MySQL’s transaction ACID has flaws and doesn’t match documentation promises. This may lead to serious correctness issues - use with caution.

Database in K8S: Pros & Cons

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Whether databases should be housed in Kubernetes/Docker remains highly controversial. It has fundamental drawbacks with stateful services.

Are Specialized Vector Databases Dead?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Vector storage and retrieval is a real need, but specialized vector databases are already dead. Small needs are solved by OpenAI directly, standard needs are captured by existing mature databases with vector extensions. The ecological niche left for specialized vector databases might support one company, but trying to build an industry around AI stories is impossible.

Are Databases Really Being Strangled?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Many “domestic databases” are just shoddy, inferior products that can’t be helped. Xinchuang domestic OS/databases are essentially IT pre-made meals in schools. Users hold their noses while migrating, developers pretend to work hard, and everyone plays along with leaders who neither understand nor care about technology. The infrastructure software industry isn’t being strangled by anyone - the real chokehold comes from the so-called “insiders.”

Which EL-Series OS Distribution Is Best?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

RHEL-series OS distribution compatibility level: RHEL = Rocky ≈ Anolis > Alma > Oracle » Euler. Recommend using RockyLinux 8.8, or Anolis 8.8 for domestic requirements.

What Kind of Self-Reliance Do Infra Software Need?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When we talk about self-reliance and control, what are we really talking about? Operational self-reliance vs. R&D self-reliance - what nations/users truly need is the former, not flashy “self-research”.

Back to Basics: Tech Reflection Chronicles

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Mon, 29 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The cost-cutting imperative has triggered a reevaluation of all technologies, including databases. This series critiques hot DB technologies and poses fundamental questions about their trade-offs: Are cloud databases, distributed databases, microservices, and containerization real needs or false hype?

Database Demand Hierarchy Pyramid

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Wed, 10 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, user demands for databases also have a progressive hierarchy: physiological needs, safety needs, belonging needs, esteem needs, cognitive needs, aesthetic needs, self-actualization needs, and transcendence needs.

NewSQL: Distributive Nonsens

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sun, 07 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As hardware technology advances, the capacity and performance of standalone databases have reached unprecedented heights. which makes distributed (TP) databases appear utterly powerless, much like the “data middle platform,” donning the emperor’s new clothes in a state of self-deception.

Is running postgres in docker a good idea?

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sun, 13 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Thou shalt not run a prod database inside a container

Understanding Time - Leap Years, Leap Seconds, Time and Time Zones

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A proper understanding of time is very helpful for correctly handling time-related issues in work and life. For example, time representation and processing in computers, as well as time handling in databases and programming languages.

Understanding Character Encoding Principles

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sun, 01 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Without understanding the basic principles of character encoding, even simple string operations like comparison, sorting, and random access can easily lead you into pitfalls. This article attempts to clarify these issues through a comprehensive explanation.

Concurrency Anomalies Explained

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Tue, 19 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Concurrent programs are hard to write correctly and even harder to write well. Many programmers simply throw these problems at the database… But even the most sophisticated databases won’t help if you don’t understand concurrency anomalies and isolation levels.

Blockchain and Distributed Databases

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Sat, 09 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The technical essence, functionality, and evolution of blockchain is distributed databases. Specifically, it’s a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (resistant to malicious node attacks) distributed (leaderless replication) database.

Consistency: An Overloaded Term

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Tue, 08 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The term “consistency” is heavily overloaded, representing different concepts in different contexts. For example, the C in ACID and the C in CAP actually refer to different concepts.

Why Study Database Principles

rh@vonng.com (Ruohang Feng) — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Those who only know how to code are just programmers; learn databases well, and you can at least make a living; but for excellent engineers, merely using databases is far from enough.