Re: Draft Seven

I have a few suggestions (see below mixed into the release).

> August 24, 2004 - The PostgreSQL Global Development group today made
> available version 8 of the PostgreSQL Object-Relational Database
> Management System, the most advanced open source database in the
world.
> With this new release, professional users have a world-class,
scalable,

All releases are new...might be better just to say 'With this release',
perhaps spicing it up a bit with 'groundbreaking'.

> open source database solution that has many of the features provided
by
> commercial products.
>
> PostgreSQL 8.0 contains many new features that make the database the
> strongest contender against the likes of Oracle and DB2. Many
companies,
> such as Fujitsu, Afilias, RedHat, the Command Prompt consultancy, and
SRA,
> who view PostgreSQL as a strategic part of their overall I.T. plan,
have
> sponsored development of the new features, which include:

The phrasing, 'such as', does not feel quite right. Don't know what I'd
replace it with though.

> Native Windows Support: PostgreSQL now works natively with Windows
> systems and does not need an emulation layer. This provides
dramatically

I think replace 'and does not need' with 'without', which is more to the
point.

> improved performance over previous versions, and offers a compelling
> alternative to Microsoft SQL Server for independent software vendors,
> corporate users, and individual Windows developers.
>
> Savepoints: Savepoints allow specific parts of a database transaction
to
> be aborted without affecting the whole transaction. This feature is
> valuable for application developers who require error recovery within
> complex transactions.
>
> Point in Time Recovery: Point in Time Recovery provides a full
recovery
> model that allows data recovery from bare-metal to the point of
failure or
> to a specific point in time, based around automatically archived
> transaction logs.
>
> Tablespaces: This feature allows the database administrator to choose
> which filesystems are used for schemas, tables, and indexes. This
allows
> the administrator to separate different parts of their data onto
separate
> disks to improve performance.

Very minor nit: the bullet point descriptions for savepoints and PITR
began with naming them explicitly, while table spaces is described as
'This Feature'.

> Improved Memory and I/O usage: With this release of PostgreSQL, disk
> input/output subsystems have been improved to use shared buffers more
> effectively, yielding more predictable loads and substantially better
> performance during peak usage times.

Maybe (just maybe) the term shared buffers is to technical for a press
release...I'd consider removing 'to use...effectively'.

> There are also several new external components which complement the
core
> PostgreSQL database engine:
>
> - Slony-I is a a "master-slave" replication system with cascading and
> failover capabilities. It even lets you replicate between two
different
> versions of PostgreSQL, allowing for simple and painless upgrades.

I'd like to see the word 'asynchronous' injected in there somewhere.
Also, I think it looks better without the double quotes around
master-slave.

> - PostgreSQL has beefed up several areas of its language
interoperability
> including the procedural languages PL/Perl, PL/PHP and PL/Java.
> - With this version, Postgresql also offers the .Net provider, Npgsql.
>
> Version 8 is the collective work of hundreds of developers, building
on
> almost twenty years of development dating back to the University of
> California at Berkeley. The PostgreSQL group has over one thousand
> members, working at different companies all over the world.
>
> PostgreSQL is licensed under the BSD license, giving maximum
flexibility
> for both commercial and noncommercial use. This puts PostgreSQL users
in
> full control of how PostgreSQL is deployed in their organizations. The
> PostgreSQL database can be downloaded freely at
http://www.postgresql.org.

Merlin