date:20040423

Dennis Bjorklund [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
 When I ask about non-standard complience of Pg (turning unquoted 
 identifiers to lowercase instead of uppercase, violating the SQL 
 standard, and requring an expensive rewrite of clients), and I get the 
 answer uppercase is ugly, I think something is wrong.

 I would love if someone fixed pg so that one can get the standard 
 behaviour. It would however have to be a setting that can be changed so we 
 are still backward compatible.

Yes.  There have been repeated discussions about how to do this, but
no one's come up with a solution that seems workable.  See the archives
if you care.

For the foreseeable future, backwards compatibility is going to trump
standards compliance on this point.  That doesn't mean we don't care
about compliance; it does mean that it is not the *only* goal.

I find it a bit odd to be debating this point in this thread, seeing
that one of the big lessons I draw from MySQL is standards compliance
does not matter...

regards, tom lane

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Re: [HACKERS] contrib vs. gborg/pgfoundry for replication solutions

2004-04-23 Thread Jan Wieck

Tom Lane wrote:

The specific details aren't especially relevant to this thread, though.
What is relevant is that we agree to a commitment that we will make
it easy to build modules outside the current Postgres build environment,
and that we will have an ongoing commitment to make sure that that keeps
working.
Agreed.

Jan

--
#==#
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# Let's break this rule - forgive me.  #
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Re: [HACKERS] contrib vs. gborg/pgfoundry for replication solutions

2004-04-23 Thread Fabien COELHO


  The specific details aren't especially relevant to this thread, though.
  What is relevant is that we agree to a commitment that we will make
  it easy to build modules outside the current Postgres build environment,
  and that we will have an ongoing commitment to make sure that that keeps
  working.

Maybe you should try to mimic apache apxs script behavior?
It allows to compile, install, configure new modules into apache.

pg_config is not convincing at the time:

shell pg_config --includedir-server
/usr/local/pg750a/include/postgresql/server

shell ls /usr/local/pg750a/include/postgresql/server
ls: /usr/local/pg750a/include/postgresql/server: No such file or directory

Too bad, server headers are not installed by default:-(

-- 
Fabien.

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Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?

Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
  My question is, What can we learn from MySQL?  I don't know there is
  anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question.
  
  Questions I have are:
 
 I have already told Bruce at length about the single most common 
 complaint in the phpPgAdmin lists and in the IRC channel: the inability 
 to change column types.  I think we should listen to the punters on that 
 one.

Yea, I will push that for 7.5.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian|  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]   |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive, |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.|  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Peter Eisentraut

Am Freitag, 23. April 2004 06:09 schrieb Bruce Momjian:
   o  Are we marketing ourselves properly?
   o  Are we focused enough on ease-of-use issues?
   o  How do we position ourselves against a database that some
  say is good enough (MySQL), and another one that some
  say is too much  (Oracle)
   o  Are our priorities too technically driven?

Success is not measured by absolute number of installations.  You can measure 
success by having enough users so that the project can continue, enough users 
so you can make a living, more satisfied users than unsatisfied ones, more 
heavy-duty installations than personal database-driven websites, and by 
having a product that you feel good about.  The only way to position 
ourselves is as the relational database with the best price/performance 
ration (price = TOC, performance = features + speed).  And the only way to 
achieve any of these goals is by focussing on technology and ease of use.  
For the crowd out there, PostgreSQL is an exciting and growing topic.  That's 
more important than the installation count.


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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

 There are two issues here : ease-of-use for admin and basic users.

 On for former point, admin ease-of-use, A little story a few month ago.

 I succeeded in advising production people here to switch some applications
 from a mysql database, which was working perfectly, to a postgres
 database. A few weeks later, the performances were desastrous. 30 seconds
 to get an answer to a simple select on a 1500 entries tables. After
 investigation, the problems were:

  - no vacuum, although there were daily DELETE FROM tables;
to empty all the data and reload from another source.

  - no analyze, because the admin did not know about it.

My goal is to have pg_autovacuum integrated into the backend for 7.5.  I
don't know if it will default to being turned on or off, I'm sure that
will be a discussion, but if it is defaulted to on, then this whole
problem of having to train newbies about vacuum should just go away.

Matthew


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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Fabien COELHO


Dear Matthew,

 My goal is to have pg_autovacuum integrated into the backend for 7.5.

I know about that, and that would be a good thing.

 I don't know if it will default to being turned on or off, I'm sure that
 will be a discussion, but if it is defaulted to on, then this whole
 problem of having to train newbies about vacuum should just go away.

Yes. I really thing that it should be on by default, because those who
will need it more than others are those who will not know about tuning
configuration parameters. As I understand the requirements from
pg_autovacuum, it means that some statistics will have to be on by default
as well.

Good luck;-)

-- 
Fabien Coelho - [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Thomas Swan

Bruce Momjian wrote:

My question is, What can we learn from MySQL?  I don't know there is
anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question.
	
 

MySQL became popular at my university when the students discovered they 
could install it on their personal computers.  Just the exposure for 
personal development and trial is enough to win a following. 

Win32 installations are a big deal.   With win32 machines outnumbering 
*nix operating systems by more than 10 to 1 (more on personal 
computers), the unix only restriction reduced the number of possible 
people testing and developing with it by at least that amount.   Most 
developers I know work primarily on Windows workstations and asking for 
a machine to run Postgresql on unix is just not practical.   With the 
win32 port, they can run it on their computers and at least test or 
evaluate their projects.

I and a number of my friends are exceptionally please at the progress of 
the win32 port.  Thank you!

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Re: [HACKERS] contrib vs. gborg/pgfoundry for replication solutions

2004-04-23 Thread Rod Taylor

On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 23:05, Robert Treat wrote:
 On Thursday 22 April 2004 13:55, Barry Lind wrote:
  I think the solution lies in improving www.postgresql.org.  At the end
  of the day it doesn't matter where source code lives, what matters is
  can people find what they are expecting.  Given we know what people are
  looking for, that should be front and center on the web site and the ftp
  sites.

 But of course that solution always stalls out when it comes down to picking 
 which projects get the special treatment of direct links from the main 
 website and which ones stay out of the spotlight. With JDBC you might make 

Most end users don't care if they can choose between 20 administration
interfaces. They want to know which one works the best and just use
that.

Guidelines:

1. Must be fully functional with new release of PostgreSQL on day of
PostgreSQL release -- all features. (Admin programs should know how to
create and manage all objects).

2. Must function across a majority of platforms that PostgreSQL
supports.

3. Must be available for free. Something we could *and will* distribute
via CD or could be installed by default. Likewise, source code must be
available to ensure it does not become discontinued.

4. Must be high quality -- equivalent to that of PostgreSQL itself.

5. It should be something that a company selling PostgreSQL support
would be willing to take on.

6. Must have demonstrated the above prior to inclusion on the download
page (gone through a full cycle).

7. They must be willing to change the name to something generic. I.e.
PostgreSQL Administration Interface or PostgreSQL Java Connector.

In other-words, they need to be willing to be a part of the larger
PostgreSQL community. If someone thinks that the JDBC drivers are
broken, the JDBC folks should be open to debate on how to solve the
issues or otherwise argue that there are no problems. Same as how
PostgreSQL itself works.

I really don't see this as being any different than deciding which
buffer strategy or website style to use. One is better in some way so it
becomes a part of the system.


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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

 My goal is to have pg_autovacuum integrated into the backend for 7.5.

 I know about that, and that would be a good thing.

I hope so!

 I don't know if it will default to being turned on or off, I'm sure that
 will be a discussion, but if it is defaulted to on, then this whole
 problem of having to train newbies about vacuum should just go away.

 Yes. I really thing that it should be on by default, because those who
 will need it more than others are those who will not know about tuning
 configuration parameters. As I understand the requirements from
 pg_autovacuum, it means that some statistics will have to be on by default
 as well.

I think it's premature to have this conversation.  I need to get something
done / working before we dicuss optimal configuration.  That said, I also
agree that if it's good enough, it should be on by default.

 Good luck;-)

Thanks, I'll need it

Matthew

ps: I'm hoping to have time to work on this starting in May.  I haven't
really done any development on pg_autovacuum beyond bug fixing what is
already in CVS, so If someone out there wants to work on it, don't
wait for me, I won't be offended :-)  I just want to see it up and
running.



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Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

On Fri, 2004-04-23 at 05:22, Dennis Bjorklund wrote:
 On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
 
  When I ask about non-standard complience of Pg (turning unquoted 
  identifiers to lowercase instead of uppercase, violating the SQL 
  standard, and requring an expensive rewrite of clients), and I get the 
  answer uppercase is ugly, I think something is wrong.
 
 I would love if someone fixed pg so that one can get the standard 
 behaviour. It would however have to be a setting that can be changed so we 
 are still backward compatible.
 
  that even if I write a patch to start migration, I'm not likely to get
  it in.
 
 Just changing to uppercase would break old code so such a patch should not
 just be commited. But would people stop a patch that is backward
 compatible (in the worst case a setting during initdb)? I'm not so sure
 they will.
 

I know this to be true, but don't fully understand it... if our default
behavior is to fold lower, and we change it to just fold upper... then
in theory this shouldn't break anything since what used to be folder
lower will now simply be folder upper. the only people who will have a
problem are those who quote on one end but not the other, which is bad
practice anyways...  so i would say if your serious about it, make the
patch as GUC case_folding for upper or lower and get a taste for what
breaks inside the db. 

Robert Treat
-- 
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL


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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

Matthew T. O'Connor wrote:
 I think it's premature to have this conversation.  I need to get something
 done / working before we dicuss optimal configuration.  That said, I also
 agree that if it's good enough, it should be on by default.
 
  Good luck;-)
 
 Thanks, I'll need it
 
 Matthew
 
 ps: I'm hoping to have time to work on this starting in May.  I haven't
 really done any development on pg_autovacuum beyond bug fixing what is
 already in CVS, so If someone out there wants to work on it, don't
 wait for me, I won't be offended :-)  I just want to see it up and
 running.

I am around for assistance.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian|  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]   |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive, |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.|  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Dave Cramer

Does the current implementation of pg_autovacuum have a way of setting
windows where it is allowed to vacuum? Many large 24/7 will only allow
vacuumming at certain times of the day.


Dave
On Fri, 2004-04-23 at 08:58, Matthew T. O'Connor wrote:
  There are two issues here : ease-of-use for admin and basic users.
 
  On for former point, admin ease-of-use, A little story a few month ago.
 
  I succeeded in advising production people here to switch some applications
  from a mysql database, which was working perfectly, to a postgres
  database. A few weeks later, the performances were desastrous. 30 seconds
  to get an answer to a simple select on a 1500 entries tables. After
  investigation, the problems were:
 
   - no vacuum, although there were daily DELETE FROM tables;
 to empty all the data and reload from another source.
 
   - no analyze, because the admin did not know about it.
 
 My goal is to have pg_autovacuum integrated into the backend for 7.5.  I
 don't know if it will default to being turned on or off, I'm sure that
 will be a discussion, but if it is defaulted to on, then this whole
 problem of having to train newbies about vacuum should just go away.
 
 Matthew
 
 
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-- 
Dave Cramer
519 939 0336
ICQ # 14675561


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Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread scott.marlowe

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Bruce Momjian wrote:

Here is a blog about a recent MySQL conference with title, Why MySQL
Grew So Fast:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4715

and a a Slashdot discussion about it:

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/20/2229212mode=nestedtid=137tid=185tid=187tid=198

My question is, What can we learn from MySQL? I don't know there is
anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question.

My immediate rhetorical response is What could the Tortoise learn from
the Hare?

I think we all know which is which in my question.

Questions I have are:

o Are we marketing ourselves properly?

I'm never sure about this. I think the best marketing is experienced
users selling pg to their bosses one at a time. While our MSSQL servers
at work have died under load innumerable times, our small collection of
postgresql servers (one's so old and embedded it's running 6.4) have been
very reliable. So, slowly but surely, PostgreSQL is proving itself here.

o Are we focused enough on ease-of-use issues?

Enough for me, but I don't think databases should necessarily be all that
easy to use by people who don't understand basic relational theory. So
for me, ease of use means things like transactable DDL and well indexed,
well written documentation. I suspect ease of use for my boss is
something entirely differnt, and may have to do with why he bought the EMS
postgresql manager packages he did.

o How do we position ourselves against a database that some
say is good enough (MySQL), and another one that some
say is too much (Oracle)

Hey, we're like the porridge in goldilock's, just right... :-)

dba folks don't pick MySQL, because it's so limited and basically has
so many bugs (it's a feature that we don't bounds check data!) And it's
pretty easy to get an Oracle guy to play with postgresql when you show him
things like transactionable DDL.

o Are our priorities too technically driven?

I don't think so. But I'm a database / coder geek. :-)

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Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Stephan Szabo


On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Robert Treat wrote:

 On Fri, 2004-04-23 at 05:22, Dennis Bjorklund wrote:
  On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
 
   When I ask about non-standard complience of Pg (turning unquoted
   identifiers to lowercase instead of uppercase, violating the SQL
   standard, and requring an expensive rewrite of clients), and I get the
   answer uppercase is ugly, I think something is wrong.
 
  I would love if someone fixed pg so that one can get the standard
  behaviour. It would however have to be a setting that can be changed so we
  are still backward compatible.
 
   that even if I write a patch to start migration, I'm not likely to get
   it in.
 
  Just changing to uppercase would break old code so such a patch should not
  just be commited. But would people stop a patch that is backward
  compatible (in the worst case a setting during initdb)? I'm not so sure
  they will.
 

 I know this to be true, but don't fully understand it... if our default
 behavior is to fold lower, and we change it to just fold upper... then
 in theory this shouldn't break anything since what used to be folder
 lower will now simply be folder upper. the only people who will have a
 problem are those who quote on one end but not the other, which is bad
 practice anyways...  so i would say if your serious about it, make the
 patch as GUC case_folding for upper or lower and get a taste for what
 breaks inside the db.

I've tried just changing the parser to unconditionally casefold to upper.
First thing that happens is that initdb breaks. In addition, you have
potential issues with comparisons against the catalog's versions of
standard functions as such if you allow the case folding to be changed
after the catalogs are setup.

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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread D'Arcy J.M. Cain

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 11:07:20 -0400
Dave Cramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Does the current implementation of pg_autovacuum have a way of setting
 windows where it is allowed to vacuum? Many large 24/7 will only allow
 vacuumming at certain times of the day.

It seems to me that the point of pg_autovacuum would be to run 24/7 so
that there is never big hit on the system.  Perhaps it could be designed
to throttle itself based on current system usage though.

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain [EMAIL PROTECTED]|vex}.net   |  Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/|  and a sheep voting on
+1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082)(eNTP)   |  what's for dinner.

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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

 Does the current implementation of pg_autovacuum have a way of setting
 windows where it is allowed to vacuum? Many large 24/7 will only allow
 vacuumming at certain times of the day.

No the current implementation doesn't, but such a feature is in the works
(planned anyway).  What I was envisioning is the ability to set two
different sets of thresholds (peak / off peak).  If you demand zero
vacuuming during peak times, you could set that threshold to -1, or some
such setting.

FYI I wouldn't remcommend defaulting pg_autovacuum to on until it does
this, and a few more things that are also planned (see the archives).

Matthew


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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

 On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 11:07:20 -0400
 Dave Cramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Does the current implementation of pg_autovacuum have a way of setting
 windows where it is allowed to vacuum? Many large 24/7 will only allow
 vacuumming at certain times of the day.

 It seems to me that the point of pg_autovacuum would be to run 24/7 so
 that there is never big hit on the system.  Perhaps it could be designed
 to throttle itself based on current system usage though.

Right, there has been some talk about taking the system load into account,
but no action yet.

One comment I failed to make in my last email was that there should be
less need to explictly disallow vacuum during peak periods since vacuum
will only be occuring on specific tables when needed, which will effect
the server for a much smaller period of time than a general vacuum command
that touches all the tables.

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Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Andrew Dunstan

Stephan Szabo wrote:

I know this to be true, but don't fully understand it... if our default
behavior is to fold lower, and we change it to just fold upper... then
in theory this shouldn't break anything since what used to be folder
lower will now simply be folder upper. the only people who will have a
problem are those who quote on one end but not the other, which is bad
practice anyways...  so i would say if your serious about it, make the
patch as GUC case_folding for upper or lower and get a taste for what
breaks inside the db.
   

I've tried just changing the parser to unconditionally casefold to upper.
First thing that happens is that initdb breaks. In addition, you have
potential issues with comparisons against the catalog's versions of
standard functions as such if you allow the case folding to be changed
after the catalogs are setup.
 

ISTM that rather than a having a GUC setting, initdb would be the right 
time to make this choice. I'm not saying it would be easy, but it seems 
(without looking into it deeply) at least possible.

cheers

andrew

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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote:
 On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 11:07:20 -0400
 Dave Cramer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Does the current implementation of pg_autovacuum have a way of setting
  windows where it is allowed to vacuum? Many large 24/7 will only allow
  vacuumming at certain times of the day.
 
 It seems to me that the point of pg_autovacuum would be to run 24/7 so
 that there is never big hit on the system.  Perhaps it could be designed
 to throttle itself based on current system usage though.

Or the number of connected backends, or both?

-- 
  Bruce Momjian|  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]   |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive, |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.|  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread D'Arcy J.M. Cain

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 13:08:30 -0400 (EDT)
Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote:
  It seems to me that the point of pg_autovacuum would be to run 24/7
  so that there is never big hit on the system.  Perhaps it could be
  designed to throttle itself based on current system usage though.
 
 Or the number of connected backends, or both?

I am sure that there are lots of ways to guage.  Not sure which is best
but I am sure that the smart people here will figure it out.  The
important thing, I think, is to let the engine make the decision
dynamically.  Personally I don't have a quiet time per se but there
are random quiet periods.  Something that jumps into the fray at those
points would be really nicwe.

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain [EMAIL PROTECTED]|vex}.net   |  Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/|  and a sheep voting on
+1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082)(eNTP)   |  what's for dinner.

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Re: [HACKERS] PITR, nested transactions, tablespaces, 2-phase commit: Status

2004-04-23 Thread Heikki Linnakangas

On Sat, 17 Apr 2004, Bruce Momjian wrote:

 Would folks report on the current status of these projects:

   o nested transactions (Alvaro Herrera)
   o tablespaces (Gavin Sherry)
   o PITR (Simon Riggs)
   o 2-phase commit (Heikki Linnakangas)

I've been very busy with at work, and haven't had much time to work on the
2-phase commit patch.

I'm keeping a close eye on Alvaro's nested transactions stuff, because it
touches the same areas as 2-phase commits.

One day, while reading postgresql code, I realized that my two-phase
code doesn't do the right thing with snapshots. GetSnapshotData scans
through all running backends, and collects the xids of all running
transactions. I suppose all pre-committed transactions should go to the
snapshot too.

So there's still some work to be done, but I'm still hoping to finish it
in time for 7.5.

- Heikki


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Re: [HACKERS] contrib vs. gborg/pgfoundry for replication solutions

On Fri, 2004-04-23 at 11:02, Rod Taylor wrote:
 On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 23:05, Robert Treat wrote:
  On Thursday 22 April 2004 13:55, Barry Lind wrote:
   I think the solution lies in improving www.postgresql.org.  At the end
   of the day it doesn't matter where source code lives, what matters is
   can people find what they are expecting.  Given we know what people are
   looking for, that should be front and center on the web site and the ftp
   sites.
 
  But of course that solution always stalls out when it comes down to picking 
  which projects get the special treatment of direct links from the main 
  website and which ones stay out of the spotlight. With JDBC you might make 
 
 I really don't see this as being any different than deciding which
 buffer strategy or website style to use. One is better in some way so it
 becomes a part of the system.
 

The difference is that a better admin tool is very subjective where as
a buffer strategy is not... or maybe the difference is really that
everyone thinks they are qualified to pick a better admin tool, but
very few can really argue as to a better buffer strategy. While I think
your criteria is pretty close to what I would use, I still couldn't pick
which is the best between pgtcl/pgtclng/pgintcl or pypgsql/pygresql...
and even I did I bet some people would have a problem with my choices. 


Robert Treat
-- 
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL


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Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

On Fri, 2004-04-23 at 13:11, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
 Stephan Szabo wrote:
 
 I know this to be true, but don't fully understand it... if our default
 behavior is to fold lower, and we change it to just fold upper... then
 in theory this shouldn't break anything since what used to be folder
 lower will now simply be folder upper. the only people who will have a
 problem are those who quote on one end but not the other, which is bad
 practice anyways...  so i would say if your serious about it, make the
 patch as GUC case_folding for upper or lower and get a taste for what
 breaks inside the db.
 
 
 
 I've tried just changing the parser to unconditionally casefold to upper.
 First thing that happens is that initdb breaks. In addition, you have
 potential issues with comparisons against the catalog's versions of
 standard functions as such if you allow the case folding to be changed
 after the catalogs are setup.
 
   
 
 
 ISTM that rather than a having a GUC setting, initdb would be the right 
 time to make this choice. I'm not saying it would be easy, but it seems 
 (without looking into it deeply) at least possible.
 

This implies that the standard functions are created with explicit
quoting to make the lower case named?  Shouldn't all functions be
created without any quoting so they fold to whichever way the settings
are set?  Hmm... I see your angle Andrew.. they are going to be created
one way or the other so you'd be hard pressed to do it at any time other
than initdb time... of course you could just create duplicates of all
the functions in both upper and lower case, that way whichever way you
fold it matches :-)

Robert Treat  
-- 
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Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Andrew Dunstan

Robert Treat wrote:

On Fri, 2004-04-23 at 13:11, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
 

Stephan Szabo wrote:

   

I know this to be true, but don't fully understand it... if our default
behavior is to fold lower, and we change it to just fold upper... then
in theory this shouldn't break anything since what used to be folder
lower will now simply be folder upper. the only people who will have a
problem are those who quote on one end but not the other, which is bad
practice anyways...  so i would say if your serious about it, make the
patch as GUC case_folding for upper or lower and get a taste for what
breaks inside the db.
  

   

I've tried just changing the parser to unconditionally casefold to upper.
First thing that happens is that initdb breaks. In addition, you have
potential issues with comparisons against the catalog's versions of
standard functions as such if you allow the case folding to be changed
after the catalogs are setup.


 

ISTM that rather than a having a GUC setting, initdb would be the right 
time to make this choice. I'm not saying it would be easy, but it seems 
(without looking into it deeply) at least possible.

   

This implies that the standard functions are created with explicit
quoting to make the lower case named?  Shouldn't all functions be
created without any quoting so they fold to whichever way the settings
are set?  Hmm... I see your angle Andrew.. they are going to be created
one way or the other so you'd be hard pressed to do it at any time other
than initdb time... of course you could just create duplicates of all
the functions in both upper and lower case, that way whichever way you
fold it matches :-)
 

That strikes me as an instant recipe for shooting yourself in the foot, 
as well as providing useless catalog bloat. Things need *one* canonical 
name, IMNSHO.

cheers

andrew

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Re: [HACKERS] PITR, nested transactions, tablespaces, 2-phase commit:

2004-04-23 Thread Bob . Henkel






Just so you know I'm very thankful for your hard work and I'm sure many of
us are.  I have been waiting for this kind of functionally in Postgresql!


|-+--
| |   Heikki Linnakangas |
| |   [EMAIL PROTECTED]  |
| |   Sent by:   |
| |   [EMAIL PROTECTED]|
| |   tgresql.org|
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  |   Subject:  Re: [HACKERS] PITR, nested transactions, tablespaces, 2-phase 
commit: Status   |
  
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On Sat, 17 Apr 2004, Bruce Momjian wrote:

 Would folks report on the current status of these projects:

o nested transactions (Alvaro Herrera)
o tablespaces (Gavin Sherry)
o PITR (Simon Riggs)
o 2-phase commit (Heikki Linnakangas)

I've been very busy with at work, and haven't had much time to work on the
2-phase commit patch.

I'm keeping a close eye on Alvaro's nested transactions stuff, because it
touches the same areas as 2-phase commits.

One day, while reading postgresql code, I realized that my two-phase
code doesn't do the right thing with snapshots. GetSnapshotData scans
through all running backends, and collects the xids of all running
transactions. I suppose all pre-committed transactions should go to the
snapshot too.

So there's still some work to be done, but I'm still hoping to finish it
in time for 7.5.

- Heikki


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Re: [HACKERS] contrib vs. gborg/pgfoundry for replication solutions

2004-04-23 Thread Rod Taylor

 The difference is that a better admin tool is very subjective where as
 a buffer strategy is not... or maybe the difference is really that
 everyone thinks they are qualified to pick a better admin tool, but
 very few can really argue as to a better buffer strategy. While I think
 your criteria is pretty close to what I would use, I still couldn't pick
 which is the best between pgtcl/pgtclng/pgintcl or pypgsql/pygresql...
 and even I did I bet some people would have a problem with my choices. 

If you have a hard time picking between those projects, imagine the
difficulties someone who has never used PostgreSQL has just tracking
down the options available to them.

We would not be removing any choices for the user. We're simply
supplying a list of suggested tools that they may have interest in.

Getting the user to download PostgreSQL and give it a shot without
becoming frustrated because the basics were not available (in an
obvious location) is the first step.

Step 2 is to inform the user that there are more alternatives available.
I see pgFoundary doing a good job of #2 -- but it is not going to help
with #1 (too much choice is as bad as none at all to a beginner).


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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread J. Andrew Rogers

On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 21:09, Bruce Momjian wrote:
 Questions I have are:
   o  Are we marketing ourselves properly?


It is perhaps less a matter of marketing and more a matter of
word-of-mouth mind share.  I don't see much evidence of effective direct
marketing, but I've noticed a huge growth in mind share among the
technical crowd over the last few years, which appears to be an
outgrowth of technical reputation.


   o  Are we focused enough on ease-of-use issues?


No, and I think this is THE biggest impediment to popularity.  The real
question should actually be ease-of-use for who?.  I had little
difficulty adapting to Postgres because I have tons of database
experience and so I knew what I was looking for in the technical
documentation, which is quite good for an experienced person.  But I
have noticed that most people who have a much more limited experience
with RDBMS administration have a hard time getting started because the
use curve is pretty steep.  Ease of use isn't an issue for people like
me -- I find it very easy -- but is a significant hurdle for most
everyone else e.g. casual developers.

Some specific recommendations on this:

- Make a standard GUI admin tool a prominent part of the standard
Postgres distribution, something along the lines of pgAdmin.  I don't
use it, but a lot of other people need it.  For casual database
developers, this will greatly enhance apparent ease of use.

- Pick a procedural language (plpgsql would seem like the obvious
choice) and make it a standard part of a Postgres installation. A
standard procedural language should be an out-of-the-box feature that
just works.  Standard connection drivers (JDBC, ODBC, etc) should also
be installed by default and visible to the user.  Doing a standard
installation of Postgres for most people requires collecting a half
dozen bits and pieces that would be installed by default or as
install-time options for many databases.

- Make it much easier for the relatively clueless to install options in
their database.  Having an official menu of popular add-on modules (e.g.
some of the contrib stuff), and an easy way to automagically enable
these capabilities, will serve to educate users that these features
exist and encourage their use. I find that most new Postgres users
aren't aware that any of these things exist outside of whatever was
included with a vanilla install.

- Expanded documentation and well-indexed how-tos, both for the database
itself and for building applications using the database, for people who
are clueless about the technical details of Postgres internals would be
helpful. The standard documentation tree is a bit too reference-y for
less experienced people, and makes certain contextual assumptions that I
find many less experienced trying to navigate it don't have.  There is a
gap in the documentation between total n00b and experienced DBA that
makes it hard to transition that gap.


Postgres actually has very good ease-of-use for experienced DBAs, which
is something that it definitely gets right.  And comparing a Postgres
installation to an Oracle installation is like night and day.  The
problem is that there is no easy bootstrap path for people who aren't so
experienced with database administration and maintenance in general.


   o  How do we position ourselves against a database that some
  say is good enough (MySQL), and another one that some
  say is too much  (Oracle)


Postgres should be positioned as an effective alternative to Oracle, and
the focus should be on the enterprise database space. Postgres has
some significant leverage points in the enterprise database space, even
today, and as it becomes more feature-complete it will increasingly
become a compelling choice within this space.

Comparing Postgres to MySQL is a mistake IMO, as it leads people to
assume that they are roughly equivalent products.  I actually read a
very recent Gartner Group report comparing Postgres and MySQL a couple
months ago that basically said that Postgres and MySQL are equivalent
products, but MySQL is easier to use.  And their reasoning basically
cited the myriad of MySQL versus Postgres comparisons on the 'net.  The
suits who did the research had difficulty evaluating the technical
merits and so they based relative equivalence on the fact that they were
constantly compared to each other in the same light.


From a marketing standpoint, I would focus all my effort on comparisons
to commercial enterprise DB engines like Oracle and ignore MySQL.  This
will define Postgres as a part of the enterprise market and remove it
from the same market space that MySQL occupies.  



   o  Are our priorities too technically driven?


No.  The greatest strength of Postgres, marketing-wise, are technical
and is what drives its growth today. I think most of the ease-of-use
issues are in the packaging of the larger Postgres product and mid-level
developer documentation, both of which seem to be eminently

Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

On Fri, 2004-04-23 at 14:28, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
 Robert Treat wrote:
 of course you could just create duplicates of all
 the functions in both upper and lower case, that way whichever way you
 fold it matches :-)
 
 
 That strikes me as an instant recipe for shooting yourself in the foot, 
 as well as providing useless catalog bloat. Things need *one* canonical 
 name, IMNSHO.
 

hence the smiley...

Robert Treat
-- 
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL


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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Merlin Moncure

J. Andrew Rogers wrote:
 No.  The greatest strength of Postgres, marketing-wise, are technical
 and is what drives its growth today. I think most of the ease-of-use
 issues are in the packaging of the larger Postgres product and
mid-level
 developer documentation, both of which seem to be eminently solvable
 problems.  I think improved default product packaging would remove 80%

plus, up to this point AFAIK the postgresql docs have not been quoted
here:

http://www.dbdebunk.com

which speaks volumes ;)

Merlin



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Re: [HACKERS] contrib vs. gborg/pgfoundry for replication solutions

 On Thu, 2004-04-22 at 23:05, Robert Treat wrote:
 The difference is that a better admin tool is very subjective where as
 a buffer strategy is not... or maybe the difference is really that
 everyone thinks they are qualified to pick a better admin tool, but
 very few can really argue as to a better buffer strategy. While I think
 your criteria is pretty close to what I would use, I still couldn't pick
 which is the best between pgtcl/pgtclng/pgintcl or pypgsql/pygresql...
 and even I did I bet some people would have a problem with my choices.

I think the issue is that is gborg/pgfoundy should not just be a
sourceforge like tool for postgresql related applications.  If they are
then someone looking for a gui admin tool for exmaple has to try them all
out only to find that 75% of them are half started projects that haven't
been maintained in two years, at least that is my typical experience with
sourceforge, and I know that is an issue with gborg right now.

Perhaps we could have some type of system whereby we can rank apps that as
tier1 supported or some such thing.  The end user can still make his
subjective choice as to which is best, since nothing prevents us from
having 4 different tier1 supported gui admin apps, but the enduser would
be able to weed out most of the apps that aren't even close.


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Re: [HACKERS] contrib vs. gborg/pgfoundry for replication solutions

2004-04-23 Thread jearl

Rod Taylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

 The difference is that a better admin tool is very subjective where as
 a buffer strategy is not... or maybe the difference is really that
 everyone thinks they are qualified to pick a better admin tool, but
 very few can really argue as to a better buffer strategy. While I think
 your criteria is pretty close to what I would use, I still couldn't pick
 which is the best between pgtcl/pgtclng/pgintcl or pypgsql/pygresql...
 and even I did I bet some people would have a problem with my choices. 

 If you have a hard time picking between those projects, imagine the
 difficulties someone who has never used PostgreSQL has just tracking
 down the options available to them.

Exactly.  MySQL makes no bones about choosing blessed projects.  I
don't think that MySQL AB's MySQL Control Center is the best MySQL
GUI, but it's better than the default PostgreSQL choice.  MySQL
shoves a workable solution under the end user's nose.  PostgreSQL
gives the potential user a wide array of choices, none of which are
particularly easy to find.  How many GUI tools are listed on GBorg?
How many potential users even know to look at GBorg at all?

One thing is certain most users aren't going to find psql (probably
compiled without readline support) comparable with MySQL Control
Center.  Not to mention the fact that not having a set of blessed
tools means that we end up with competing tools.  PostgreSQL has
several replication toolsets, piles of admin tools, and several
competing language bindings for some of the most popular development
languages.

How many Python bindings does PostgreSQL need?

PostgreSQL has some amazing supporting tools, but they are all hidden
in an unlighted basement in a locked filing cabinet next to a sign
that reads Beware of the Leopard.

 We would not be removing any choices for the user. We're simply
 supplying a list of suggested tools that they may have interest in.

Exactly.  Yes, choosing tools requires some politics, and it will
inevitably make some users and developers upset because their projects
will get passed over for more popular ones.  However, this will
certainly help new users that are looking at PostgreSQL for the first
time.  They will be able to see, right off, what *sort* of tools are
available for use with PostgreSQL.  Later on as these people become
part of the PostgreSQL community they might even find out about
alternative tools that they like better.

 Getting the user to download PostgreSQL and give it a shot without
 becoming frustrated because the basics were not available (in an
 obvious location) is the first step.

PostgreSQL stacks up well as a database.  In fact, it rocks.  But
comparing plain Jane PostgreSQL against other databases and their
assorted suite of tools is not going to work in PostgreSQL's favor.
Fortunately PostgreSQL has comparable supporting tools as well.
Unfortunately no one knows about these tools except for those of us on
the PostgreSQL lists.

 Step 2 is to inform the user that there are more alternatives available.
 I see pgFoundary doing a good job of #2 -- but it is not going to help
 with #1 (too much choice is as bad as none at all to a beginner).

Precisely.  The trick is to promote PostgreSQL and a core set of
tools.  These tools don't have to be part of PostgreSQL's CVS (or even
be available for download) from the postgresql.com site, but they
should receive top billing.  When the end user looks for a GUI,
there should be a single solitary GUI that should be the default
choice.  When the end user asks about replication they should be
guided to a single solution.  In cases where it is difficult to decide
what the default case might be--like in the case of replication where
the tools you will want to use depends on what you are trying to
accomplish--simply point users at the most common scenario and then
document that they might need to use other tools to solve different
problems.


Jason

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Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-advocacy] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Jim C. Nasby

On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 02:35:48PM +0800, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
 My question is, What can we learn from MySQL?  I don't know there is
 anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question.
 
 Questions I have are:
 
 I have already told Bruce at length about the single most common 
 complaint in the phpPgAdmin lists and in the IRC channel: the inability 
 to change column types.  I think we should listen to the punters on that 
 one.
 
 Also, how about a new section in the manual: PostgreSQL for MySQL users 
 and PostgreSQL for Oracle users?
 
Maybe also a more generic section about how PGSQL is different from
other databases. Maybe I'm just dense, but it took me a long time to
figure out the whole lack of stored procedures thing (yes, PGSQL
obviously has the functionality, but many experienced DBAs won't
associate functions with stored procs). Pointing out the documentation
on MVCC and how it changes how you want to use the database would be
good, as would links to documentation on what postgresql.conf settings
you want to change out of the box.

On the other topics...
I think the biggest service PGSQL could provide to the open source
community is a resource that teaches people with no database experience
the fundamentals of databases. If people had an understanding of what a
RDBMS should be capable of and how it should be used, they wouldn't pick
MySQL.

Having a windows port is critical for 'student mindshare'. If PGSQL can't
play on windows, professors can't use it. Likewise, installation on OS X
should be made as easy as possible.

That's for the 'low end' users (many of whom will eventually become
'high end'). For professionals who have database expertise, the
comparison guide will help a lot. The other thing that will help is
continuing to bring enterprise-class features in, like multi-master
replication, partitioning, and clustering. But since people tend to
think most about the technology, I'm sure those will make it in
eventually anyway. :)
-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Database Consultant  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Member: Triangle Fraternity, Sports Car Club of America
Give your computer some brain candy! www.distributed.net Team #1828

Windows: Where do you want to go today?
Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow?
FreeBSD: Are you guys coming, or what?

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Re: [HACKERS] contrib vs. gborg/pgfoundry for replication solutions

2004-04-23 Thread Andrew Sullivan

On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 01:05:40AM -0300, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
 
 This is all I'm saying ... its like when we packaged up our first eRServer
 ... I didn't require our clients to go out and download PostgreSQL to
 build it, I pulled in the few files from our build environment into the
 package so that it could be built independently ...

I am the last person in the world to cast aspersions on anyone's
packaging, but I'm not sure holding erserver up as a paradigm case of
easy compilation outside the main build tree is going to make your
argument easier here.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan  | [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Shachar Shemesh

Stephan Szabo wrote:

I've tried just changing the parser to unconditionally casefold to upper.
First thing that happens is that initdb breaks. In addition, you have
potential issues with comparisons against the catalog's versions of
standard functions as such if you allow the case folding to be changed
after the catalogs are setup.
 

That's not the migration path I was thinking of.

What I was thinking of was:
1. Have a setting, probably per-session. Per database works too.
2. Aside from the folder upper and folder lower, have a third option. 
This is fold upper, if fails, fold lower. If succeeds, issue a 
warning. This should allow programs that rely on the folding (such as 
initdb) to be debugged during the transition period.

 Shachar

--
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting
http://www.lingnu.com/
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[HACKERS] pgFoundry delayed -- some setup issues

2004-04-23 Thread Josh Berkus

Folks,

Well, as someone could have predicted, once we actually tried running some new 
projects on pgFoundry we ran into setup issues.We're resolving these and 
should have stuff up and running soon.

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

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Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Stephan Szabo

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Shachar Shemesh wrote:

 Stephan Szabo wrote:

 I've tried just changing the parser to unconditionally casefold to upper.
 First thing that happens is that initdb breaks. In addition, you have
 potential issues with comparisons against the catalog's versions of
 standard functions as such if you allow the case folding to be changed
 after the catalogs are setup.
 
 
 That's not the migration path I was thinking of.

 What I was thinking of was:
 1. Have a setting, probably per-session. Per database works too.
 2. Aside from the folder upper and folder lower, have a third option.
 This is fold upper, if fails, fold lower. If succeeds, issue a
 warning. This should allow programs that rely on the folding (such as
 initdb) to be debugged during the transition period.

If you can do this in a clean fashion without tromping all around the
code, that'd be reasonable, however, istm that you'd need to either
pre-fold both directions from the given identifier string and pass an
extra copy around or pass the original identifier and its quoted status
and fold on use.  I think either of these are likely to be very intrusive
for what essentially amounts to a transitional feature.

In addition, I'm not sure that this would always work in any case, since
some of those usages may be quoted identifiers that were once generated
from a case-folded string (for example, looking up a name in the catalogs
and quoting it).


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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread pgsql

I have been thinking about this subject for a LONG time, and I hope I have
something to contribute.

 My question is, What can we learn from MySQL?  I don't know there is
 anything, but I think it makes sense to ask the question.

 Questions I have are:

   o  Are we marketing ourselves properly?

I would say this is a clear 'NO!' When ever I read about open-source being
used anywhere, I always read MySQL. They are *very* good at this.


   o  Are we focused enough on ease-of-use issues?

Again, NO! To often you guys settle for a work-around rather than a
feature. You are satisfied that symlinks will do the job. When someone
says they want a feature, you say, no - use a symlink.

Ease of use is VERY important, but few suggestions that address this are
ever really accepted. Yes, focusing on the functionality is the primary
concern, but how you set it up and deploy it is VERY important. You guys
need to remember, people are coming from a world where MySQL, Oracle, and
MSSQL all have nice setup programs.

I know a bit about this, as I made a PostgreSQL for Windows (It was
7.3.x) CD a while back. I had to do a lot of work on the postgresql
configuration, database initialization, and create a demo database. It
used a minimal cygwin environment, a Windows based installer, and some
custom function libraries. I tried to submit the configuration patch and
all I got was argument about using symlinks or how it wasn't needed.

The thing that kind of bugs me about this O/S project is that you guys are
a bit nit-picking about how someone uses it. I believe in the UNIX
phylosophy: capability not policy, flexability, etc. You guys seem to need
an absolute reason to include something, rather than a good reason to
exclude something. A lot of open source developers are turned off by this
sort of attitude.

   o  How do we position ourselves against a database that some
  say is good enough (MySQL), and another one that some
  say is too much  (Oracle)

My argument against this is that MySQL is no less complicated than
PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL, in production is faster than MySQL, even though
MySQL may be marginally faster on some simple queries. The system resource
usage of both systems is very similar. PostgreSQL, however, boasts a lot
of standard features that make using it much easier.

   o  Are our priorities too technically driven?

For the most part, you guys do a great, no .. fantastic, job at the
technical details of the database. Even though I get frustrated, I know it
is a great system. You *should* be technically driven.

If you want to blow the competition out of the water, you need a
non-forked Windows version of the database. You need a Java (or some other
portable environment) installer. You need to get out of the
hand-administered mentality of using symlinks and system level constructs.

One should be able to install the software, bring up a nice configuration
program which runs you through a few questions, and be done. This same
configuration program should be able to help maintain and control an the
installation. On Windows, have a service monitor program that starts and
stops the server, on UNIX, have it able to start/stop via init.d.
Everything else is expert level.


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Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Stephan Szabo


On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Stephan Szabo wrote:

 On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Shachar Shemesh wrote:

  Stephan Szabo wrote:
 
  I've tried just changing the parser to unconditionally casefold to upper.
  First thing that happens is that initdb breaks. In addition, you have
  potential issues with comparisons against the catalog's versions of
  standard functions as such if you allow the case folding to be changed
  after the catalogs are setup.
  
  
  That's not the migration path I was thinking of.
 
  What I was thinking of was:
  1. Have a setting, probably per-session. Per database works too.
  2. Aside from the folder upper and folder lower, have a third option.
  This is fold upper, if fails, fold lower. If succeeds, issue a
  warning. This should allow programs that rely on the folding (such as
  initdb) to be debugged during the transition period.

 If you can do this in a clean fashion without tromping all around the
 code, that'd be reasonable, however, istm that you'd need to either
 pre-fold both directions from the given identifier string and pass an
 extra copy around or pass the original identifier and its quoted status
 and fold on use.  I think either of these are likely to be very intrusive
 for what essentially amounts to a transitional feature.

 In addition, I'm not sure that this would always work in any case, since
 some of those usages may be quoted identifiers that were once generated
 from a case-folded string (for example, looking up a name in the catalogs
 and quoting it).

To clarify, I'm thinking about things where an application had gotten a
quoted name and is now trying to use it where the object's canonical name
was changed due to quoting changes. This only happens when quoting
is inconsistently applied, but that's most of the problem.


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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Alvar Freude

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Hi,

- -- Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

   o  Are we marketing ourselves properly?

while talking about MySQL, there is the myth, that MySQL is fast; and that
because MyISAM has no transactions, that it is faster.

That is in most cases not true! And for all real live scenarios I know and I
tested, Postgres was faster.

An example: a critical calculation in one of my online projects needs with
MySQL (MyISAM Table Type) about 2.7 to 2.8 seconds (group by on 50 rows
for some realtime statistics). But on this time, the complete table is write
locked (because MyISAM) :-(

With InnoDB the same needs at least 15 to 20 seconds, but other users can
insert/update.

With PostgreSQL (7.4) it took 1.9 to 2 seconds. Parallel inserts/updates no
problem.


The only reason why I changed the whole stuff to Postgres yet is, that there
are a lot of problems with MySQL special features (see the Gotchas:
http://sql-info.de/mysql/gotchas.html)


Other example: Some days ago I had a talk with my project leader; I said,
that for a new application we should *everything* build with transactions,
referential integrity, ... -- his answer: I want to have a fast
application. AAARRGH! ;-(


So, perhaps it might be a good idea to create a page with feature- and
performance comparison.
I planed to create an independant and RDBMS benchmark suite (as Free Software
including the datas for testing), but I'm not sure if this project ever come
true ...



   o  Are we focused enough on ease-of-use issues?

I'm not sure about the focus; but the result can be better.

When installing and using any type of software, I want that this is as easy
as possible while it helps me to understand as much of the backgrounds as
possible.

Whats about the initdb, postgresql.conf and startup scripts?


So, It might be good to have a GUI-Tool (!) in the standard package, which
makes an initdb with selectable options and helps the user to set the
required options in the postgresql.conf. 

I'm a computer freak since the mod 80s and I can edit config files. But to
have a GUI tool with some explaining texts at the buttons etc is much easyer
than hacking a textfile.


Also the other stuff mentioned in this thread are important: auto vacuum,
windows port, better default values etc.


Ease-of-use includes for me localisation and documentation in different
languages. As you can see, my english is junky -- so reading german
documentation is a lot of easyer for me ;-)


   o  Are our priorities too technically driven?

AFAIK it is good to have the priorities technically driven -- if nobody
forgets the userfriendlyness ;)


Ciao
  Alvar 


- -- 
** Alvar C.H. Freude -- http://alvar.a-blast.org/ -- http://odem.org/
** Berufsverbot? http://odem.org/aktuelles/staatsanwalt.de.html
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Re: [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Alvar Freude

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Hi,

- -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I would say this is a clear 'NO!' When ever I read about open-source being
 used anywhere, I always read MySQL. They are *very* good at this.

yes!
Some days ago, there was a news in the Heise Newsticker (most important IT
news in germany), about MySQL clustering.

  http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/46511


4*2 processors with 10 replicated transactions per second was the main
statement.


I'm sure, that this is the typical MySQL blabla: no transactions, but select
statements ... 

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/foren/go.shtml?read=1msg_id=5487088forum_id
=55321


I'm not sure, if iot is a good idea to go down with the niveau to such lies.


  o  Are we focused enough on ease-of-use issues?
 
 Again, NO! To often you guys settle for a work-around rather than a
 feature. You are satisfied that symlinks will do the job. When someone
 says they want a feature, you say, no - use a symlink.

[...]

yes, you are right!


One additional thing: when updating from 7.x to 7.y, a new initdb is needed.
This means: If I have some GB Data, the RDBMS is some ours down for
upgrading. This is really no good situation. There should be a way for
converting the storage on the fly: Updating and let postgres do the rest
automaically.

I guess this is not really easy; but it is important!


Ciao
  Alvar

- -- 
** Alvar C.H. Freude -- http://alvar.a-blast.org/ -- http://odem.org/
** Berufsverbot? http://odem.org/aktuelles/staatsanwalt.de.html
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Re: [HACKERS] License question

2004-04-23 Thread Alvar Freude

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- -- Shachar Shemesh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  The new requirement encapsulates the original requirement, and your
 license is therefor not violated. I have, in fact, relicensed your work.

no, the license is only for the *combined* work (which includes your work).
Extracting the original picture, this picture is still under the blue only
license!


Ciao
  Alvar

- -- 
** Alvar C.H. Freude -- http://alvar.a-blast.org/ -- http://odem.org/
** Berufsverbot? http://odem.org/aktuelles/staatsanwalt.de.html
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TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

[HACKERS] Current CVS tip segfaulting

2004-04-23 Thread Alvaro Herrera

Hackers,

In current (as of a couple hours ago) clean CVS tip sources, without any
of my local changes, I'm getting a postmaster segfault when trying to
connect to a non existant database.  The generated core file does not
seem to contain any useful information.  The first time I saw this I
managed to PANIC the system -- I can't seem to be able to reproduce that
part.

(Newly built on an empty vpath, so this should be a case of make
distcleaning ...)

Core was generated by `postgres: alvherre asd [local] startup
'.
Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault.

warning: current_sos: Can't read pathname for load map: Input/output error

Reading symbols from /lib/libz.so.1...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/libz.so.1
Reading symbols from /lib/libreadline.so.4.3...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/libreadline.so.4.3
Reading symbols from /lib/libncurses.so.5...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/libncurses.so.5
Reading symbols from /lib/libcrypt.so.1...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/libcrypt.so.1
Reading symbols from /lib/libresolv.so.2...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/libresolv.so.2
Reading symbols from /lib/libnsl.so.1...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/libnsl.so.1
Reading symbols from /lib/libdl.so.2...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/libdl.so.2
Reading symbols from /lib/tls/libm.so.6...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/tls/libm.so.6
Reading symbols from /lib/tls/libc.so.6...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/tls/libc.so.6
Reading symbols from /lib/libgpm.so.1...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/libgpm.so.1
Reading symbols from /lib/ld-linux.so.2...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/ld-linux.so.2
Reading symbols from /lib/libnss_files.so.2...done.
Loaded symbols for /lib/libnss_files.so.2
Reading symbols from /usr/lib/gconv/ISO8859-15.so...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/lib/gconv/ISO8859-15.so
Reading symbols from /usr/lib/gconv/ISO8859-1.so...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/lib/gconv/ISO8859-1.so
0x in ?? ()
(gdb) bt
#0  0x in ?? ()

-- 
Alvaro Herrera (alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl)
The only difference is that Saddam would kill you on private, where the
Americans will kill you in public (Mohammad Saleh, 39, a building contractor)

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Re: [HACKERS] Current CVS tip segfaulting


Please recompile with debug symbols and report back the stack trace. 
See the faq on running debug.


---

Alvaro Herrera wrote:
 Hackers,
 
 In current (as of a couple hours ago) clean CVS tip sources, without any
 of my local changes, I'm getting a postmaster segfault when trying to
 connect to a non existant database.  The generated core file does not
 seem to contain any useful information.  The first time I saw this I
 managed to PANIC the system -- I can't seem to be able to reproduce that
 part.
 
 (Newly built on an empty vpath, so this should be a case of make
 distcleaning ...)
 
 Core was generated by `postgres: alvherre asd [local] startup
 '.
 Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault.
 
 warning: current_sos: Can't read pathname for load map: Input/output error
 
 Reading symbols from /lib/libz.so.1...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/libz.so.1
 Reading symbols from /lib/libreadline.so.4.3...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/libreadline.so.4.3
 Reading symbols from /lib/libncurses.so.5...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/libncurses.so.5
 Reading symbols from /lib/libcrypt.so.1...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/libcrypt.so.1
 Reading symbols from /lib/libresolv.so.2...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/libresolv.so.2
 Reading symbols from /lib/libnsl.so.1...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/libnsl.so.1
 Reading symbols from /lib/libdl.so.2...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/libdl.so.2
 Reading symbols from /lib/tls/libm.so.6...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/tls/libm.so.6
 Reading symbols from /lib/tls/libc.so.6...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/tls/libc.so.6
 Reading symbols from /lib/libgpm.so.1...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/libgpm.so.1
 Reading symbols from /lib/ld-linux.so.2...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/ld-linux.so.2
 Reading symbols from /lib/libnss_files.so.2...done.
 Loaded symbols for /lib/libnss_files.so.2
 Reading symbols from /usr/lib/gconv/ISO8859-15.so...done.
 Loaded symbols for /usr/lib/gconv/ISO8859-15.so
 Reading symbols from /usr/lib/gconv/ISO8859-1.so...done.
 Loaded symbols for /usr/lib/gconv/ISO8859-1.so
 0x in ?? ()
 (gdb) bt
 #0  0x in ?? ()
 
 -- 
 Alvaro Herrera (alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl)
 The only difference is that Saddam would kill you on private, where the
 Americans will kill you in public (Mohammad Saleh, 39, a building contractor)
 
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-- 
  Bruce Momjian|  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]   |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive, |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.|  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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Re: [HACKERS] Threading for 7.5


I have completed most of the thread changes listed below.

I have added automatic thread compile/link flag detection via configure
from the URL listed below.  I have kept per-platform customization that
was used in the past.  Please let me know of the new flag usage (like
-pthread) makes your platform's template flags unneeded.

I have also added code to the bottom of configure to run
src/tools/thread_test for threaded builds and throw an error if the
platform doesn't support threads.

I have greatly improved the thread test program.  It now does only the
tests that are required for that platform, rather than all thread
functions we might need.

I talked to Peter via chat and he seemed to be OK with it.  He didn't
like running the test program from initdb or putting it in /bin, and
wanted it done as part of configure.

I am sure this will need adjustment, but for now, I think it looks good.

I have also added a doc mention that folks run the thread test program
if they are experiencing problems with threading.

Folks, please test and let me know how it works for your platform.

[ I think for Unixware we are going to need to use the thread flags for
building all binaries.  It will be easy to do.  Larry, you read to test
a patch?]

---

pgman wrote:
 As you know, we had libpq and ecpg threading available in 7.4 via a
 configure flag.
 
 However, threading required users to report their platform's configure
 flags (something better done by configure) and run a thread test program
 (src/tools/thread/thread_test).
 
 For 7.5, I want to use:
 
   http://www.gnu.org/software/ac-archive/htmldoc/acx_pthread.html
 
 that Jan found that is a plug-in for configure to determine thread
 flags.  As long as it has the existing platform flags we know about,
 this will be a better way to determine threading flags.
 
 The thread-test program is works, but it tests only one version of each
 operating system.  Ideally is should be run on the build/install
 machine, rather than have a per-port value.  I talked via chat with
 Peter on this, and running this from configure again only tests the
 current library, and doesn't handle cross-compiling or cases where a
 different version of the dynamic library is used for binary
 distributions.
 
 The basic problem is that thread_test tests _how_ functions get their
 results (thread-safe or not), and not the actual input/output of the
 function.
 
 I want to do away with per-platform testing for thread_test.  If the
 platform supports threading, it should pass that test.  I have updated
 its output to be cleaner:
   
   Make sure you have added any needed 'THREAD_CPPFLAGS' and 'THREAD_LIBS'
   defines to your template/$port file before compiling this program.
   
   errno is thread-safe
   
   Your system uses strerror() which is thread-safe.
   Your system has getpwuid_r(), so it doesn't use getpwuid().
   Your system has getaddrinfo(), so it doesn't use gethostbyname()
 or gethostbyname_r().
   
   YOUR PLATFORM IS THREADSAFE
 
 It reports the system as thread safe or not thread-safe.  I think we can
 just tell folks to run that test if they are going to use threads or if
 they are having problems with threads.  We can mark platform versions
 that are _not_ thread safe, rather than enable platforms only after they
 have passed the test.  If it doesn't pass, the platform is broken for
 threads.  The idea is that any platform that supports threads _should_
 pass the test.  Assuming that many will fail is not efficient for us,
 and perhaps not reliable either.
 
 Peter asked about binary-only distributions, and how they would run the
 thread test program.  Perhaps when threading is enabled in configure, we
 should actually install the thread test program as pg_thread_test in
 /bin along with the other PostgreSQL binaries.  Folks who want to use
 threads should run that program first to test things.
 
 With these changes, all platforms should be able to enable threads, and
 we will not have to collect per-platform thread reports for 7.5, except
 collect platform versions that are not thead-safe and put those tests in
 the template files.
 
 Comments?
 
 -- 
   Bruce Momjian|  http://candle.pha.pa.us
   [EMAIL PROTECTED]   |  (610) 359-1001
   +  If your life is a hard drive, |  13 Roberts Road
   +  Christ can be your backup.|  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

-- 
  Bruce Momjian|  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]   |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive, |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.|  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

Re: [HACKERS] Current CVS tip segfaulting

2004-04-23 Thread Alvaro Herrera Munoz

On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 07:00:05PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
 
 Please recompile with debug symbols and report back the stack trace. 
 See the faq on running debug.

No, I already did that (all my builds are like that anyway and I read
stack traces more frequently than I'd like).  The can't read pathname
message I don't understand, but I had never seen it.

-- 
Alvaro Herrera ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
La web junta la gente porque no importa que clase de mutante sexual seas,
tienes millones de posibles parejas. Pon buscar gente que tengan sexo con
ciervos incendiánse, y el computador dirá especifique el tipo de ciervo
(Jason Alexander)

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Re: [HACKERS] Current CVS tip segfaulting

2004-04-23 Thread Alvaro Herrera Munoz

On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 08:38:29PM -0400, Alvaro Herrera Munoz wrote:
 On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 07:00:05PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
  
  Please recompile with debug symbols and report back the stack trace. 
  See the faq on running debug.
 
 No, I already did that (all my builds are like that anyway and I read
 stack traces more frequently than I'd like).  The can't read pathname
 message I don't understand, but I had never seen it.

strace'ing the postmaster suggested me that the dbname string in
utils/init/postinit.c, the InitPostgres function, is the culprit.
In fact, if I apply the following patch to tcop/postgres.c the
whole thing stops happening.  I don't know if this is the correct
fix, but it may suggest something.  Maybe it's a problem with my
platform's argv handling (Mandrakelinux 10, kernel 2.6.3, glibc 2.3.3).

Index: postgres.c
===
RCS file: /home/alvherre/cvs/pgsql-server/src/backend/tcop/postgres.c,v
retrieving revision 1.400
diff -c -r1.400 postgres.c
*** postgres.c  19 Apr 2004 17:42:58 -  1.400
--- postgres.c  24 Apr 2004 02:20:47 -
***
*** 2686,2692 
 errhint(Try \%s --help\ for more information., argv[0])));
}
else if (argc - optind == 1)
!   dbname = argv[optind];
else if ((dbname = username) == NULL)
{
ereport(FATAL,
--- 2648,2654 
 errhint(Try \%s --help\ for more information., argv[0])));
}
else if (argc - optind == 1)
!   dbname = pstrdup(argv[optind]);
else if ((dbname = username) == NULL)
{
ereport(FATAL,

-- 
Alvaro Herrera ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Et put se mouve (Galileo Galilei)

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TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend

Re: [HACKERS] Current CVS tip segfaulting

Alvaro Herrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 In current (as of a couple hours ago) clean CVS tip sources, without any
 of my local changes, I'm getting a postmaster segfault when trying to
 connect to a non existant database.

Hmm, works for me with this morning's sources.  Bruce created a bug of
that ilk a few days ago but fixed it shortly thereafter.  Is it possible
the anon-CVS server is out of date?

regards, tom lane

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Re: [HACKERS] Current CVS tip segfaulting

Alvaro Herrera Munoz wrote:
 On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 07:00:05PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
  
  Please recompile with debug symbols and report back the stack trace. 
  See the faq on running debug.
 
 No, I already did that (all my builds are like that anyway and I read
 stack traces more frequently than I'd like).  The can't read pathname
 message I don't understand, but I had never seen it.

Oh, you mean the line:

 warning: current_sos: Can't read pathname for load map: Input/output error

That is strange.  Does it happen if you call abort() from the C code? 
That should dump a core on its own.  The question is whether things are
getting corrupted because of the way it crashed or some other configure
problem.


-- 
  Bruce Momjian|  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]   |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive, |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.|  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend

Re: [HACKERS] Current CVS tip segfaulting

Tom Lane wrote:
 Alvaro Herrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
  In current (as of a couple hours ago) clean CVS tip sources, without any
  of my local changes, I'm getting a postmaster segfault when trying to
  connect to a non existant database.
 
 Hmm, works for me with this morning's sources.  Bruce created a bug of
 that ilk a few days ago but fixed it shortly thereafter.  Is it possible
 the anon-CVS server is out of date?

The bug I fixed was related to a postmaster restart when connecting to a
non-existant database, and the fix was to prevent the longjump for
elog(FATAL) if the code hadn't reached the longjump location yet.

It could be a bug, but if it is, it is a different fix than the one I
did, I think.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian|  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]   |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive, |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.|  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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Re: [HACKERS] Current CVS tip segfaulting


FYI, I just tried:

$ psql lkjasdf
psql: FATAL:  database lkjasdf does not exist
(2) cat /u/pg/server.log
LOG:  database system was shut down at 2004-04-23 15:23:20 EDT
LOG:  checkpoint record is at 0/9D
LOG:  redo record is at 0/9D; undo record is at 0/0; shutdown TRUE
LOG:  next transaction ID: 457; next OID: 17208
LOG:  database system is ready
FATAL:  database lkjasdf does not exist

That looks OK to me on BSD/OS.

I can put a copy of CVS head on my ftp site for testing if you wish.

---

Alvaro Herrera Munoz wrote:
 On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 08:38:29PM -0400, Alvaro Herrera Munoz wrote:
  On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 07:00:05PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
   
   Please recompile with debug symbols and report back the stack trace. 
   See the faq on running debug.
  
  No, I already did that (all my builds are like that anyway and I read
  stack traces more frequently than I'd like).  The can't read pathname
  message I don't understand, but I had never seen it.
 
 strace'ing the postmaster suggested me that the dbname string in
 utils/init/postinit.c, the InitPostgres function, is the culprit.
 In fact, if I apply the following patch to tcop/postgres.c the
 whole thing stops happening.  I don't know if this is the correct
 fix, but it may suggest something.  Maybe it's a problem with my
 platform's argv handling (Mandrakelinux 10, kernel 2.6.3, glibc 2.3.3).
 
 Index: postgres.c
 ===
 RCS file: /home/alvherre/cvs/pgsql-server/src/backend/tcop/postgres.c,v
 retrieving revision 1.400
 diff -c -r1.400 postgres.c
 *** postgres.c  19 Apr 2004 17:42:58 -  1.400
 --- postgres.c  24 Apr 2004 02:20:47 -
 ***
 *** 2686,2692 
  errhint(Try \%s --help\ for more information., argv[0])));
 }
 else if (argc - optind == 1)
 !   dbname = argv[optind];
 else if ((dbname = username) == NULL)
 {
 ereport(FATAL,
 --- 2648,2654 
  errhint(Try \%s --help\ for more information., argv[0])));
 }
 else if (argc - optind == 1)
 !   dbname = pstrdup(argv[optind]);
 else if ((dbname = username) == NULL)
 {
 ereport(FATAL,
 
 -- 
 Alvaro Herrera ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
 Et put se mouve (Galileo Galilei)
 

-- 
  Bruce Momjian|  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]   |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive, |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.|  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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Re: [HACKERS] contrib vs. gborg/pgfoundry for replication solutions

2004-04-23 Thread Marc G. Fournier

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Download - Mirrors - Lists - Users - Developers - Docs - Search

 We could have:

 Download - Docs - Lists - Search - Community - Contrib

 Download would be a unified version of the Download/Mirrors links on the
 current site.

I don't agree with this, since mirrors are web mirrors ... but I do like
the 'Contrib' pointing to gborg/projects ...


Marc G. Fournier   Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]   Yahoo!: yscrappy  ICQ: 7615664

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[HACKERS] The case for preserving case.

2004-04-23 Thread emf

Hello, postgresql hackers.

I am working with a client with a 20k record MySQL database (that will 
shortly expand to 100k/1m) and a few thousand lines of PHP code that 
does a lot of DB interaction.

Their application, with a lot of relationships between data and a bunch 
of data integrity requirements is perfectly suited to postgresql.

The PHP code follows a coding standard wherein variables are assigned 
CamelCase identifiers. All of the objects persist themselves to the DB, 
with a variable per column; on object initialization db columns are 
read from the db and added as attributes of the object.

All of this breaks when I start to use postgresql, because all of the 
attributes become lowercased.

Fixing this problem involves one of three things:

1.) rewriting all the code to have lowercased identifiers. This is 
effectively renaming everything, as long camel case attributes become 
much harder to read when they're lowercased. This also changes the 
clients' preferred coding standard.

2.) using double quotes around all identifiers in sql statements. As 
you're probably aware, there's no string format in PHP that lets you 
write double quote marks unescaped (and do variable substitution), so 
this involves rewriting hundreds of lines and imposing ongoing overhead 
for every SQL query.

3.) escaping 4 lines in src/backend/parser/scansup.c , where 
identifiers are lowercased.

I understand that the reason for lowercasing is because odbc 
connections, etc expect case insensitivity, but the current behaviour 
isn't an SQL standard nor is it really case insensitivity. I would love 
case insensitivity with case preservation, but since that evidently is 
a more complicated option, I would like to know how I can formulate the 
'case preserving' option in a way to make it palatable for inclusion.
--
nothing can happen inside a sphere
that you could not inscribe upon it.
~mindlacehttp://mindlace.net

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Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

Stephan Szabo [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 To clarify, I'm thinking about things where an application had gotten a
 quoted name and is now trying to use it where the object's canonical name
 was changed due to quoting changes. This only happens when quoting
 is inconsistently applied, but that's most of the problem.

Actually, that's *all* the problem, at least as far as SQL commands are
concerned.  If you are consistent about always quoting or never quoting
a particular name, you can't tell the difference between PG's behavior
and SQL-spec behavior.

Aside from the reality that apps aren't very consistent about their
quoting behavior, the fly in this ointment is that whenever you query
the database catalogs you will see the stored spelling of the name.
So apps that rely on seeing the same spelling in the catalog that they
entered could break.  (In practice this doesn't seem to be as big a
problem as the sloppy-quoting-behavior issue, though.)

Personally I don't think that this is a transitional issue and we will
someday all be happy in upper-case-only-land.  Upper-case-only sucks,
by every known measure of readability, and I don't want to have to put up
with a database that forces that 1960s-vintage-hardware mindset on me.
So what I'm holding out for is a design that lets me continue to see the
current behavior if I set a GUC variable that says that's what I want.
This seems possible (not easy, but possible) if we are willing to
require the choice to be made at compile time ... but that sounds too
restrictive to satisfy anybody ... what we need is a design that
supports such a choice per-session, and I dunno how to do that.

regards, tom lane

PS: I resisted the temptation to SET THIS MESSAGE IN ALL UPPER CASE
to make the point about readability.  But if you want to argue the
point with me, I'll be happy to do that for the rest of the thread.

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Re: [HACKERS] Current CVS tip segfaulting

Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 It could be a bug, but if it is, it is a different fix than the one I
 did, I think.

Re-reading Alvaro's message, I wondered if cranking logging up to a
higher-than-default setting was needed to reproduce the bug.  A quick
experiment in that line didn't show a problem, but maybe I missed the
critical setting.  Alvaro, what postgresql.conf settings are you using?

regards, tom lane

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Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?

2004-04-23 Thread Dennis Bjorklund

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004, Tom Lane wrote:

 Upper-case-only sucks, by every known measure of readability, and I
 don't want to have to put up with a database that forces that
 1960s-vintage-hardware mindset on me.

Well, get used to it :-)

 So what I'm holding out for is a design that lets me continue to see the
 current behavior if I set a GUC variable that says that's what I want.

Wouldn't the upper case identifiers just be visible in the \d output,
table headers and such. You could still have psql tab completion produce
lower case identifiers (if told using some setting).

Even if the database store all non quoted names as upper case I would 
still use lower case in all applications and on the psql command line.

It's not a big problem for me if the output of \d and the table headers
and such is in upper case. One would get used to it fase. And maybe one
can even store an extra bit telling if the string was created with or
without quotes and have psql lower case all the ones created without
quotes.

First I thought that one can store the string with case all the time, and
just convert when needed (when comparing identifiers). Perhaps using the
non existant locale support and locales such as SQL_UPPER or SQL_MIXED.
But it wont work since it would make Foo and Foo clash. When translated
directly it would create separate entries Foo and FOO.

ps. And if you want to play the WRITE MAILS USING ONLY UPPER CASE, BE MY 
GUEST!

-- 
/Dennis Björklund


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Re: [HACKERS] contrib vs. gborg/pgfoundry for replication solutions

Marc G. Fournier [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 I don't agree with this, since mirrors are web mirrors ... but I do like
 the 'Contrib' pointing to gborg/projects ...

Yeah, I like the contrib link idea too.  Much of the recent discussion
comes down to gborg not being visible enough.

However ... how do we handle things once pgfoundry is online too?

(I suppose two links labeled Old Contrib and New Contrib might serve
as a forcing function to get projects to migrate over ;-))

regards, tom lane

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Re: [HACKERS] Current CVS tip segfaulting

Alvaro Herrera Munoz [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 [ bug goes away if ]
 !   dbname = argv[optind];
 [becomes]
 !   dbname = pstrdup(argv[optind]);

Hm, that's interesting.  I could believe this would have something to do
with overwriting the argv area, but we have not touched any of that code
recently; so why would it break for you just now?

Which PS_USE_FOO option does your platform use?  (See
src/backend/utils/misc/ps_status.c)

regards, tom lane

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[HACKERS] Do we prefer software that works or software that looks good?

2004-04-23 Thread Shachar Shemesh

Tom Lane wrote:

Personally I don't think that this is a transitional issue and we will
someday all be happy in upper-case-only-land.  Upper-case-only sucks,
by every known measure of readability, and I don't want to have to put up
with a database that forces that 1960s-vintage-hardware mindset on me.
 

And I was feeling apologetic that I was accusing without a base the good 
(and I'm not cynical about that last adjective) people of the PostgreSQL 
of making life more difficult for programmers just because they don't 
like the asthetics of something which an external standard dictates.

I mean, sure, I understand the sentiment. I don't like seeing all-caps 
either. But allow me to give an allegory from another free software 
project, one where I am an actual active code contributer.

Imagine that Alexandre Juliard, the benevolent dictator for the Wine 
project, would have had the same attitude. Each time someone would come 
around saying today function X calls function Y, and this breaks 
program Z. We need to reverse X and Y, he would reply with But it 
makes more asthetic/program design/whatever sense to do it the way we do 
it today. The result would be that Wine would never come to the point 
where it can run Word, IE and other prominant Windows only applications.

The reality of things is that Wine, just like Postgres, work by an 
external standard. Wine's standard is more strict, less documented, and 
more broad. However, like it or not, the more you deviate from the 
standard, the more you require people who want to use your technology to 
adapt to whatever it is that you do.

This doesn't make sense on any level.

So what I'm holding out for is a design that lets me continue to see the
current behavior if I set a GUC variable that says that's what I want.
 

This seems possible (not easy, but possible) if we are willing to
require the choice to be made at compile time ... but that sounds too
restrictive to satisfy anybody ... what we need is a design that
supports such a choice per-session, and I dunno how to do that.
 

In other words, you are going to reject the simpler solutions that treat 
this as a transition problem, because of asthetic issue? Not even 
program design issue, mind you. Sounds strange to me, and also pretty 
much guarentees that this will never happen. That would be a shame.

The reason this would be a shame is because postgres is the same reason 
this thread was CCed to advocacy to begin with. Databases form a pretty 
saturated field. If Postgres is to break forward, it needs a niche. The 
fully-featured databases role is taken (Oracle), and the free database 
role is taken (MySQL). Postgres CAN take the fuly featured free database 
niche, but that will need help.

The time is ripe, however. The company we're doing my current OLE DB 
work for has contacted me about this, and they dictated Postgres (MySQL 
was not nearly enough). They still want to see proof of concept working, 
but that's my job. However, I'm afraid they might give up if things 
become too complicated to port. Under such circumstances, every little 
help Postgres can give may mean the difference between breaking 
through and staying behind. I really wouldn't like to see such an 
important help break merely because Tom Lane doesn't like to see 
uppercase on his database tables list.

Now, I'm intending to do the best I can on my end. This does have a 
pretty heavy cost. It means that the OLE DB driver will parse in details 
each query, and perform replacements on the query text. This is bug 
prone, difficult, hurts performance, and just plain wrong from a 
software design perspective. The current drift of wind, however, means 
that the PostgreSQL steering commite seems to prefer having a lesser 
quality driver to seeing ugly uppercase.

			regards, tom lane

PS: I resisted the temptation to SET THIS MESSAGE IN ALL UPPER CASE
to make the point about readability.  But if you want to argue the
point with me, I'll be happy to do that for the rest of the thread.
 

Yes, it's a well known rhetoric technique. Take whatever argument your 
opponent say, and exagerate it to an absurd.

  Shachar

--
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting
http://www.lingnu.com/
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Re: [pgsql-advocacy] [HACKERS] What can we learn from MySQL?