PGSimCity - How PostgreSQL Works

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.

The limiting factor of your human brain is the same limiting factor the reader has to function with. You can get the LLM to aid in making something, but at a certain level of greebling, [0] it just doesn't feel like it's meant to be experienced by another human being, you know? The sacrifices you'd have to make by NOT building this with an LLM would be made because you COULDN'T fit the mental model of everything going on here in your head. The user has got a similar brain with similar limits.

I'm trying to understand the metaphors here, or how all of the animations and flashing lights are meant to represent something going on, but it all sort of gets lost in the sauce. I'm not sure why a new process is represented by a square that goes through a tube and ends up at a building and then the pinball switch glows red. I click on a thing and a popup says "sessions is the victim" with another paragraph of small text, then disappears a couple seconds later? What?

To be fair, I wont assume this is meant to teach me! Always the possibility of a skill issue on my part and I just lack knowledge here. Taking it at face value as a neat thing, it's neat.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble

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.

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.

This is really cool. How I wish we have this at the stage of learning database in university.

Considering that it has been vibe-coded with not even 48 hours passed: Is this truthful and accurate at all? Or will it lead to false conclusions and anti-knowledge?

This is very similar to what I imagine whenever I get into a deep focus state debugging a program in gdb... I would love to experience debugging a program in VR with graphics like this,,, there would be no better way to learn a codebase. I wonder how good an experience you could achieve by generating a 3d map based on arbitrary code

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

Cool UI.

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.

I assume this is done with the help of AI? I have done similar vibe project that explaining catastrophic forgetting with the help of AI. It's just so satisfying now that if you really want to learn something, you can always do it with the help of AI. Before, it's hard to find good resources, now it's not a problem, the issue now becomes one's own focus and agency.

This is really cool to look at. A couple weeks ago I started vibe-coding a Doom for Beam which will allow you to 'run around' a beam VM as a factory floor and see the modules and functions, how they are connected, how 'hot' they are running, and whether they're throwing sparks. I haven't gotten far yet, but I've been wanting to build it to justify getting myself a VR headset.

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

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.

It's a cool and very educative way to learn. But I wish there's like a live query thing going on so that it'd be easy to understand. I am viewing on the 27" 4K screen and it's perfect for it, like others said, I don't feel there's too much boxes and info at the same time. Although the site is going blank sometimes if I zoom in a bit too much. Really cool nonetheless.

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.

Virtually it's so amazing to see. The layers are clearly separated and it does give a sense of the connections being accepted and processed in the central part.

The operation intricacies are a bit difficult to understand because the core looks a bit clogged up. Nonetheless, great work!

We've got GPU accelerated PostgreSQL sooner than GTA VI...

I wonder if games can be developed to teach CS (OS, db, compilers) which are visual. Instead of reading a book on databases, perhaps tinkering with something like this would make learning easier. (I'm not a gamer, but I read about factorio kind of games on hn).

At first sight, it looks super cool. Kudos for pulling this off. At closer look, feels very overwhelming. The claude tone doesn't help ease the nerves either. The text version is too verbose.

Bravo! I have worked in observability for years and I have a deep desire for new visualizations technics inspired by video games. It would be great in XR as well.

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

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

I would love this as an active visualisation of a live postgres. Imagine monitors with this stuff on, including replication from other postgresses, and whatever pgbouncer is doing on the front.

I love this, let's do all of Data Intensive Application SimCity!

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.

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)

UI looks great on a 32" monitor, idk what everyone's complaining about ;)

Visualizing MVCC and transaction visibility would make this even more valuable as a learning tool.

Amazing, great work. Keep polishing this up!

Wow, cool projects are so back again

The logo shape of the platform is a very niche touch, kudos

Wow. Can’t wait to explore the architecture

Anyone else getting Reboot vibes?

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.”

So much stuff to see but looks very cool!

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

I like the education tools being developed using coding agents, but there should be some review in the process.

Good luck continuing it, hope you generated something that can be iterated on.

Love this

This is amazing!

i understood all that.

maybe try adding tts to the tour? Lol

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.