Amy,

As a user from a non-techie background, I feel your
pain. In fact, it was limitations in MS Access that
got me using PostgreSQL.

You are seeing one of the downsides of open source
software, which is that learning is self driven to a
large extent. But you can benefit from the fact that
PostgreSQL is highly standards-compliant; any generic
course or materials on SQL or relational databases
will be applicable.

Other features of PostgreSQL have their equivalents
elsewhere. For example, the procedural SQL language
pl/pgsql was modeled on Oracle pl/sql. While pl/pgsql
does not implement many of the features of the Oracle
equivalent, any basic introductory materials on Oracle
pl/sql will get you off to a flying start with
pl/pgsql.

Most popular programming languages have some sort of
interface available, so those languages can be used to
create applications that use PostgreSQL. In fact, MS
Access works well as a front end for PostgreSQL, using
ODBC. Just go to
http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/psqlodbc to find
what you need to get started. And you can easily
migrate your Access database to PostgreSQL using the
Database Migration Wizard that comes with PGAdminII:
http://pgadmin.postgresql.org/pgadmin2/pgadmin2.php

So far as installing and administering PostgreSQL,
your best shot is to use a package. Different types
of packages are available, depending on which
operating system you are using. The packages are set
up to automatically handle most of the installation
and setup for you, with little driving necessary.
That will get you off and running with the least
effort. You will find that default configurations
will be plenty for someone migrating from MS Access:
you can leave the fine points for later.

In other words, don't be put off by the lack of
courses. There are plenty of materials available;
besides the official documentation, there are plenty
of other helpful guides and howtos (look for links on
http://www.postgresql.org), there are a number of good
books, the mailing list archives are full of
searchable discussions of just about any problem you
might encounter, and let's not forget the friendly and
helpful people on these lists!

Comments on other choices: commercial choices will
lead you to much expense, complexity of
administration, and vendor lock in. MySQL: well, just
search the mailing lists for much discussion of the
many shortcomings of that product when it comes to
handling mission critical data.

So, by all means give PostgreSQL at try. It's not as
hard as it looks, and you won't regret it.

HTH,
Jeff


--- Amy Young <Amy_Young (AT) hilton (DOT) com> wrote:

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing.
http://photos.yahoo.com/

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo (AT) postgresql (DOT) org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


[...]
Why not preprocess the csv file before uploading it to the DB? Here's a way
to do it in quickly in Perl. 10K rows should be no problem:

$,=',';
while(<F>) {
my @foo = split(/,/ => $_);
splice(@foo,6,0,splice(@foo,27,1));
print @foo;
}

or if your csv is not so simple (e.g. contains escaped commas):

use Text::CSV_XS;
$,=',';
my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new();
while(<F>) {
die "Cannot parse line $.: " . $csv->error_input . "\n" unless $csv->parse($_);
my @foo = $csv->fields();
print @foo[0..5,27,6..26,28..@foo-1]; ## alternative to split()
print "\n";
}


- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg (AT) turnstep (DOT) com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200312102158

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iD8DBQE/1+GVvJuQZxSWSsgRAp33AKCVXqKTU8qfV585DdQw+ThRWVrF7Q CgkC/V
ruF2a1JeWAECM5BGSVbJcSg=
=ZY16
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
subscribe-nomail command to majordomo (AT) postgresql (DOT) org so that your
message can get through to the mailing list cleanly

For what it's worth:

If you can find an old server some place that you can throw a copy of
PostgreSQL on, play with it. Break it. Fix it. Play with it some
more.

As an old education major (who got into this biz quite by accident) I
know that people "learn" differently, and that they often have the best
results by learning via the method that best suits their needs.

But, one advantage of playing with it in the manner I describe is that
you don't get locked into the opinions or prejudices of the person
doing the training.

When faced with the probability of using PostgreSQL in a project, I
followed the "Getting Started" section from the documentation on my
linux box at home. I installed it, played with it, wiped it out and
started again.

A little painful at first, but in my opinion, the dividends were HUGE.

Again, your mileage may vary.

Good luck,
Frank


--- Amy Young <Amy_Young (AT) hilton (DOT) com> wrote:

=====
Frank Way
E-Mail: fgw_three (AT) yahoo (DOT) com

"Place guards on all the roads and keep the troops
from running to the rear..." MG John Buford, 1863

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing.
http://photos.yahoo.com/

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command
(send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to majordomo (AT) postgresql (DOT) org)