Re: Proposal to use JSON for Postgres Parser format

Peter Geoghegan <pg(at)bowt(dot)ie> writes:
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 8:39 PM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> Our existing format is certainly not great on those metrics, but
>> I do not see how "let's use JSON!" is a route to improvement.

> The existing format was designed with developer convenience as a goal,
> though -- despite my complaints, and in spite of your objections.

As Munro adduces nearby, it'd be a stretch to conclude that the current
format was designed with any Postgres-related goals in mind at all.
I think he's right that it's a variant of some Lisp-y dump format that's
probably far hoarier than even Berkeley Postgres.

> If it didn't have to be easy (or even practical) for developers to
> directly work with the output format, then presumably the format used
> internally could be replaced with something lower level and faster. So
> it seems like the two goals (developer ergonomics and faster
> interchange format for users) might actually be complementary.

I think the principal mistake in what we have now is that the storage
format is identical to the "developer friendly" text format (plus or
minus some whitespace). First we need to separate those. We could
have more than one equivalent text format perhaps, and I don't have
any strong objection to basing the text format (or one of them) on
JSON.

regards, tom lane