NO ARRAY OF SUNSHINE: an introduction to data types from a data quality perspective
summary
Choice of PostgreSQL data types directly changes data quality: smallint (2 bytes, ±32k), integer (4 bytes, ±2 billion) and bigint (8 bytes) determine storage and risk of running out of IDs in high‑volume systems causing errors or expensive migrations; integer math truncates (75/80 stored as integers yields 0), so casting to numeric and rounding to 3 places → 93.8% fixes accuracy; storing booleans as text or int hides variants like "y", "yes", "maybe" and breaks truthy queries.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (6)
- 0:00Introduction
- 0:28The big takeaway for this talk
- 0:53Data & data quality assessment
- 5:14Quantitative & qualitative data
- 6:04Storing quantitative data
- 10:49Math with numbers
related talks
45mAdvanced Data Types in PostgreSQL
43mAdvanced Data Types in PostgreSQL
57mUnderstanding Advanced Datatypes in PostgreSQL
57mUnderstanding Advanced Datatypes in PostgreSQL
42mAdvanced Int - Bigint Conversions
19mLet me show you why data types still matter
46mDon't do that!
50mRange Types in PostgreSQL 9.2 - Your Life Will Never Be the Same