SCaLE 22x, live streams and Row-Level Security Sucks

Obligatory hallway arch photo from SCaLE22x

The 22nd edition of the Southern California Linux Expo, or SCaLE 22x, took place from March 6-9, 2025, in Pasadena, California. It was a fantastic event packed with insightful talks, community spirit, and legendary figures from the computing world.

One of the highlights of SCaLE 22x was getting the chance to attend talks by two icons: Leslie Lamport and Jon "maddog" Hall. Leslie Lamport, whom many know for Paxos, TLA+, and generally being the "father of distributed computing", delivered the closing keynote titled "Coding isn't Programming". Meant to shake up developers, it was thought-provoking and engaging arguments. It was a rare privilege to hear directly from someone whose work has influenced so much of modern computing.

Earlier, Jon "maddog" Hall's talk "The JOY of Free Software: It should be fun to fish" was a great reminder of why we do what we do in the open-source world and how we should not lose track of how fun this journey of creation was. maddog's passion for free software and its ethical implications is always inspiring, and I've mentioned before on this blog how his example has guided my career choices.

PostgreSQL @ SCaLE 22x

Postgres again had a strong presence at SCaLE with a dedicated track of talks (thanks PgUS for the booth in the Expo hall), and I had the pleasure of being part of several related sessions:

  • On Thursday, March 6th, I participated in the PostgreSQL Ask Me Anything session alongside some incredible PostgreSQL experts. The discussion touched on internals, performance, best practices, and the future of Postgres. It's always great to interact with the community and share insights from our experiences.

  • On Friday, March 7th, I delivered my talk titled "Row-Level Security Sucks. Can We Make It Usable?". It was a deep dive into PostgreSQL's Row-Level Security (RLS), highlighting its strengths and shortcomings, and exploring ways to make it more accessible to empower developers in real-world applications.

  • A super fun part of my SCaLE visit was the opportunity to live stream from the conference floor! Across three mornings, I had fantastic conversations with members of the PostgreSQL community. Huge thanks to SCaLE for allowing the use of their space and to my awesome guests:

    • Henrietta Dombrovskaya
    • Mark Wong
    • Gülçin Yıldırım Jelínek
    • Sarah Conway
    • A brief cameo from Devrim Gündüz

    Our discussions covered everything from the conference itself to PostgreSQL community and ecosystem goings-on and insights.

On the occasion of the conference, Manning Publications has been kind enough to create a discount code for my book PostgreSQL Mistakes and How to Avoid Them, so you can use jascale22x to get 45% off until March 22nd, 2025! After that, you can use my promo code au35ang for a 35% discount.

PostgreSQL Mistakes and How to Avoid Them