One of the most powerful features of PostgreSQL is its diversity of procedural languages. You can write your database functions in Perl, Python, Javascript or many more, but with that diversity comes a lot of options.

Did you ever wonder:

• What all of those options are on the CREATE FUNCTION statement?
• How do they affect my application?
• Does my choice of procedural language affect the performance of my statements?
• Should I create a single trigger with IF statements or several simple triggers?
• How do I debug my code?
• Can I tell which line in my function is taking all of the time?

We will explore of of those questions and many more as we dig into the world of PostgreSQL procedural languages.