Re: Integrating Replication into Core

On Wed, 2006-11-22 at 19:23 +0100, Markus Schiltknecht wrote:
> Hi,
>
> [ moving to -hackers, that seems more appropriate. ]
>
> Jeff Davis wrote:
> > If there is some great replication solution that a lot of people need
> > and it will only work with a change to core, that change might make it
> > in.
>
> That's what I'm saying. Although it's hypothetical.
>
> > However, there may not be nifty syntax changes nor GUCs in core to
> > support a specific implementation of a replicator.
>
> I'd love to get into that one. Some of the people who have attended my
> talk at the summit might know that I've introduced the following syntax
> to Postgres-R:
>
> ALTER DATABASE testdb START REPLICATION IN GROUP testgroup USING egcs;
>
> And I'm using the system catalogs to store replication settings. What's
> so wrong with that?
>

Nothing's wrong with that approach. My prediction, however, is that:

(1) Similar replication solutions will first agree on some common hooks
they need in the backend that may have no actual SQL syntax associated,
and get patches in
(2) then agree on some implementations details
(3) then agree on the syntax

To talk about getting syntax in the backend now seems like putting the
cart before the horse, to me anyway. But there's nothing wrong with
having SQL syntax for the replication.

Regards,
Jeff Davis