Re: Mid cycle release?

No one would expect Oracle to install Oracle and walk away. We are not
MySQL, nor MS Access.

> I can definitely see where you're coming from, it's a sort of tough-love
> scenario. There are legitimate counter arguments, though. The most
> obvious is that anyone who *does* evaluate their needs properly
> shouldn't have too much trouble turning it off, whereas there are lots
> of small database users out there who find having to set up a vacuum
> cron a pain. Example: I'm in the process of setting up a typo blog,
> using postgresql of course, but the database setup was secondary to the
> main thing that I was doing, and I'd completely forgotten about setting
> up a cron. Now I'm unlikely to produce blog posts at a rate that will
> cause the database to grow out of the "minuscule" range, but it should
> still be done, right?
>
> I have to ask, what's wrong with lazy users? Software which allows you
> to be lazy gives you a warm tingly feeling, and you install it on your
> intranet server when no-one's looking. We want people to think of
> postgresql that way.
>
> There are lots of MySQL specific pieces of software out there that
> started out as some guy/girl with a PHP and MySQL type of book. We can't
> turn that clock back, but making postgresql easier for the masses has to
> be a good thing for its adoption. The native win32 port is the poster
> child for this. It was a big PR win, no?
>
> I would argue that leaving autovacuum off is only justifiable if we feel
> that it's going to be a bad choice for the majority of users. Many of
> the users who frequent postgresql lists understand the trade-off, but
> the ones that we're trying to attract don't. Is it better for them to
> discover manual vacuums when they're trying to incrementally improve
> performance (with the risk that they never discover them at all), or
> when their database is running like a dog because they've never vacuumed
> it at all?
>
> One solution might be to turn it on in turn-key solutions: linux distro
> RPMs, Win32 installer (is it on there already?) etc, but leave it turned
> off in the source release. Would that help you, or are your clients
> using RPMs or whatever?
>
> Cheers
>
> Tom
>

--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/