Re: Where to find information on the new HOT tables?

> I'd also like to add that people judging documentation effectiveness by its
> length are certainly not real users of it. I've yet to meet a PostgreSQL user
> who doesn't praise the product documentation, even if newcomers often need
> some time to be able to understand where to find what. The Tsearch enabled
> website has been a huge improvement here.
> To ease PostgreSQL newbies manual grasping, I certainly don't think it will
> need shortening the documentation.

Agree, 125%. There are quick start guides for newbies, and a
quadrillion goofy little howtos (although I've come to have some
contempt for the whole "howto" category). I chose PostgreSQL over
that-other-database because it had useful documentation and smelled like
a "real" database. I'm also an Informix/DB2 DBA and I think the
documentation is very good, there can't be too much documentation so
anyone judging on length just needs to be dope-slapped. [And I've
personally used the TOAST section to tune a database that uses lots of
large values]. The current manual is divided into sections, including a
tutorial so I just don't see any grounds for a complexity complaint at
all. A new user should, of course, wade into the "System
Administration" section with some sense of trepidation.

My experience [now extensive] with users of that-other-database is that
they will *ALWAYS* claim *ANYTHING* else is too complicated [most of
them have never used anything else] before starting to explain why they
have two storage backends and the merits between MyISAM and InnoDb;
Sheeesh!

It is important to distinguish between informed criticism and the
triumvirate of laziness, fanboy FUD, and outright whining.

OTOH, I think a paragraph explaining how HOT causes performance to
differ from previous versions would be sufficient. It isn't really a
user, or even an admin, tunable AFAIK. It is just an inherent good in
the current version - but since it was mentioned allot in release
announcements it merits some mention in the docs.

Adam Tauno Williams, Network & Systems Administrator
Consultant - http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com
Developer - http://www.opengroupware.org