Re: BUG #5218: Easy strategic feature requests

2009/11/30 Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>:
> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 1:42 PM, Pavel Stehule <pavel(dot)stehule(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> 2009/11/30 Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>:
>>> Pavel Stehule <pavel(dot)stehule(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>>>> I thing so ex-MySQL needs exact DESCRIBE, exact SHOW statement. It is
>>>> some, what they used long time and then they missing it.
>>>
>>> You know, if they're not willing to make any adaptations, they're never
>>> really going to make the transition anyhow.  If we provide
>>> bug-compatible versions of SHOW or whatever, people like that will just
>>> move on to complaining about some other difference.
>>>
>>> I'm in favor of trying to develop some documentation aimed at helping
>>> new MySQL converts, but I don't think there's much to be gained by
>>> doing more than that.
>>
>> +1
>>
>> Any official place has sense - minimally for people who can read documentation.
>
> This seems to be the exact opposite of what you said an hour and a
> half ago, but, hey, at least we're all more or less in agreement now.
> There remains the issue of finding a qualified person who is willing
> to spend the time to write this documentation...

I spoke about possible general solution about this request. What I
know people who use or who used MySQL, these people need exact same
behave. SELECT describe() is maybe similar, but it is strong
postgresql-ism - nobody ex MySQL use function for returning a
recordset. It's need a look to documentation - and nobody reads
documentation - so successful design is one (for ex-MySQL) - exact
MySQL behave. For these people - good PostgreSQL is MySQL :)

Personally, I thing, so DESCRIBE, SHOW is very bad design. psql
metastatements are cleaner - and information schema more intuitive.
MySQL has some good points what I would to see in Pg (like SQL/PSM),
real procedures, but not this.

Documentation can help to some people - without some uglyfication pg
source code. We see same problem - who will write it, and who will
maintain it. This documentation will be related to MySQL or to some
specified release?

Regards
Pavel Stehule

>
> ...Robert
>