Emil Shkolnik
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Please tell us about yourself, and where you are from.
I was born in Riga, Latvia and our family moved to Israel in 1990, since then I am here. After high school and almost 6 years in the Israel Defence Forces I’ve started my study - Computer Science at the Tel Aviv, Open University - this was my high tech career start. I’ve worked as C++ software engineer, development team lead, VP R&D and then Postgres came to my life - together with Michael Goldberg we established the Israel PostgreSQL Community, and then the Postgres Professional services company and competency center - Awide Labs (former PostgresPro Israel). After 2 years of delivering services in the PostgreSQL area we started development of the Awide Platform - a Postgres Management and Monitoring platform. So far this platform successfully solves our clients issues, automates most of the PostgreSQL tasks, configurations, schema issues, health checks and much more. For more details, see awide.io.
Emil Shkolnik
How do you spend your free time? What are your hobbies?
There is not so much free time, but when there is - my hobbies are photography, chess, yachting and playing tennis.
Any Social Media channels of yours we should be aware of?
Last book you read? Or a book you want to recommend to readers?
The last book I read was “The Telegram” by Konstantin Paustovsky. It is a very short and shocking book that helps prioritize the things in our lives.
My most recommended book for entrepreneurs is “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, and for the developers it’s “Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software” by the “Gang of Four”
Any favorite movie, or show?
My favorite movie is “Pulp Fiction”. I guess that this mainly because of the timing I’ve seen this movie - it was a rainy evening during my army service, we got free couple hours in the small town. There were only several soldiers in the cinema, and the movie scratched my memory because of the contrast with my real life in those days.
What does your ideal weekend look like?
The best weekend starts with a yacht sail and moderate wind, taking some pictures, after that the weekend continues to the barbeque with the friends and the family, later I have some time to work on Lightroom to complete the pictures I shooted earlier to share it with my family, and maybe a chess game at night.
What’s still on your bucket list?
One of the significance - is to try to get a private pilot licence
What is the best advice you ever got?
Don’t give advice - smarts don’t need it, and for the rest they will not be helpful.
When did you start using PostgreSQL, and why?
I started using Postgres four years ago. It was for the purpose to learn and understand it before starting our company.
Do you remember which version of PostgreSQL you started with?
This was 9.6.
Have you studied at a university? If yes, was it related to computers? Did your study help you with your current job?
Yes, I’ve graduated from the Academic Center for Bachelor of Information Systems in Tel Aviv. It was almost a decade after I left computer science in Open University. The study helps me to organize my previous knowledge and understanding of some concepts that were outside of my daily development tasks.
What other databases are you using? Which one is your favorite?
I used MS SQL and Oracle in most enterprises, but Postgres is a favorite.
How do you contribute to PostgreSQL?
Most of my contributions are related to Israel PostgreSQL community tasks. Helping with the Israel pgDay event organisation in 2018- 2021 years - they do not involve writing code, but I still see it as very important for the project.
Which PostgreSQL conferences do you visit? Do you submit talks?
As mentioned above, we organised 5 Israel PostgreSQL conferences - pgDay, where I’ve submitted a couple of talks and presentations.
Do you think PostgreSQL has a high entry barrier?
Yes, as well as maintenance is more complicated, but this is compensated by a huge features set, ability to scale out, stability and configurability. I hope our development - AWIDE Platform will help users to jump over this barrier easily.
Anything else you like to add?
Long Live PostgreSQL!