This has been one of the most hilarious parts of my development life. I recently recommended a local company to use PostgreSQL for a reporting system. The company in question wanted to know that if they chose PostgreSQL, would anyone on staff be able to maintain it. So, I began to interview the developers to find out about their experiences with PostgreSQL.

Me: Do you have any experience with PostgreSQL?

Developer 1: Yes, I used it at the last job for a product fulfillment project, but I don't think many people have that experience. We should probably stick to using MySQL.

Me: Do you have any experience with PostgreSQL?

Developer 2: Yes, I used it at the last job for a reporting project, but I don't think many people have that experience. We should probably stick to using MySQL.

After interviewing all seven developers that were influential on the project, I found that the only person without hands-on experience with PostgreSQL was the project manager. Since the project manager didn't expect to have any technical involvement in the project, he approved the selection of PostgreSQL.

PostgreSQL is one of the dirty little secrets of web developers. They have about the same level of familiarity with it as they do with encryption and security. Because only advanced users will use it, they have a general geek requirement to look into it and presume that everyone else is too inexperienced to do the same. Everyone is trying to "dumb it down" for the other guy. They consider their own use of the tools at hand (MySQL) a sacrifice that they are willing to make in order to help the less experienced person down the hall. Comically, the person down the hall thinks that he's/she's making the same sacrifice for everyone else.