How a Sparse Table Sparked PostgreSQL’s hstore, the Precursor to JSONB
PostgreSQL core developer Oleg Bartunov explains how a null‑filled “ugly” table led him and Teodor Sigaev to invent hstore, a Perl‑hash style key‑value column. That experimental datatype proved so useful it evolved into nested hstore and ultimately JSONB in Postgres 9.4, illustrating how real‑world pain drives major DB features.