Re: psql backslash consistency

On Friday 27 May 2005 20:45, Tom Lane wrote:
> Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)surnet(dot)cl> writes:
> > On Fri, May 27, 2005 at 04:16:15PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> >> There seems to be a distinct lack of unanimity about that judgment ;-)
> >
> > Well, yes, _across Postgres hackers_. But if we were to ask
> > pgsql-general I have a feeling we would measure more weight on one side.
>
> Yeah, but which side ;-) ? I think the pg-general population would have
> a very much higher fraction of people who have no user-defined functions
> and therefore would see no value in \df not showing system functions.
>

Given that a good majority of the system functions aren't even documented, I
think you'd find it more likely people would sway toward not having the few
functions they have written not be totally hidden within the vast list of
system functions that a majority of people will never make use of. As a
point of reference, both pgadmin and phppgadmin default to the "hide system
functions" method and I haven't seen too many complaints.

> If we put in a config variable, that at least lowers the stakes for the
> losing side in the argument about what the default should be. Without
> that, I think there will be some serious flamewars ahead...
>

I'm not against the idea of a config variable, but this is what, the third or
fourth go around on this? It seems rather unfair to put this burden upon the
current patch writer at this stage of the game.... if someone wants to code
the config option let them, put it shouldn't be a barrier to having the
current patch be applied.

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