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PGSimCity - How PostgreSQL Works

266 pointsby jonbaertoday at 12:19 AM36 commentsview on HN

Comments

layorictoday at 1:21 AM

I love what is trying to be done here. Some feedback to improve would be to cut out a lot of the noise with the "Take tour". There are too many boxes and things changing on the screen to get a sense of what is happening. Also make it interactive rather than automatically switch onto the next subject. Being a passive observer to so much information trying to be conveyed is very confusing.

I really do like these kinds of approaches to showing the inner workings of different kinds of tech, so think this is on the good path to being a very useful tool, but needs some focus rather than more data/graphs/info boxes.

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narmiouhtoday at 1:28 AM

I imagined as soon I saw the initial visual that I would somehow be able to enter a query and it would walk me through the flow through the entire system starting from input parsing to all the way to delivering output and perhaps along the way understand some of the autonomous processes that happen in parallel that aren't query specific but run constantly.

What others are saying - fantastic attempt, but don't know where to start or where to end.

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jedbergtoday at 4:32 AM

I have a pretty good working knowledge of the internals of Postgres, but this just confused me. I think it's too busy to understand. At the very least, it would be cool if there were a "slow down" button.

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Curtis_Guantoday at 1:27 AM

Understanding how scheduling works inside a database used to require numerous architecture diagrams to explain. I was amazed when I saw PGSimCity — it presents such a complex technical implementation process in such an engaging way. Since it's already open‑source, I think the same idea can be reused in other domains, such as cloud computing, Kubernetes, and so on.

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arjietoday at 2:06 AM

I can't believe "Rendering The First Frame..." is not "Reticulating Splines..." :)

Cool UI.

LowLevelKerneltoday at 4:32 AM

Wow. Can’t wait to explore the architecture

manytimesawaytoday at 3:28 AM

Besides the sadly obvious vibe-coding, just note that SimCity is still an active trademark from EA, so might be good to rename it.

loveparadetoday at 1:18 AM

I don't know what I am looking at but it is fabulous.

luciana1utoday at 3:23 AM

3.86B tokens to build a visual simulator of a database that runs on a fraction of that compute. we're using the expensive brain to draw pictures of the cheap brain.

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skreemtoday at 1:21 AM

This is really cool, I like having visualization to hold on my head!

Also (assuming this is LLM-generated, apologies if it’s not) seems like the future of learning/self-teaching… gonna try and generate similar things for stuff I’m learning

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dosticktoday at 2:14 AM

It surely is impressive,but it’s just that - components of db service as buildings/machine. What it needs is narrative, purpose, with main actors clearly defined - client and data. demonstrating what is involved in the chain when data’s written and requested.

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num42today at 2:22 AM

Really great work! I've always wanted to build a CPU simulator(Full PC simulator) in this style. I still haven't fully figured out my own approach, but this will definitely be an inspiration for me. Thanks for making and sharing it.

gregsadetskytoday at 2:12 AM

Great work! When zooming out a bit, I'm somewhat sure that the 'blinking'/glitching is due to z-fighting. Just something you may want to look into (ie move 3d surfaces so that they're not at the exact same z)

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bazzingadevtoday at 3:14 AM

Wow, cool projects are so back again

npunttoday at 1:42 AM

This is very cool, just some UX tips to make it more legible:

1. remove ~50% of the UI since it covers too much of a laptop screen

2. improve the camera controls so its easier to pan and zoom.

BowBuntoday at 1:44 AM

Amazing, great work. Keep polishing this up!

deadbabetoday at 1:48 AM

Someone should make a movie called “Postgres” which is about people living within a Postgres city, in the style of Se7en.

“Every city has secrets. Ours have indexes.”

Jonathanfishnertoday at 2:33 AM

thats cool. n1. spent 15min looking on it rn

abstrcttoday at 1:51 AM

This is amazing!

npltoday at 1:25 AM

Love this

bibimsztoday at 1:45 AM

i understood all that.

codedumptoday at 3:10 AM

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