Re: Should rename "startup process" to something else?

On 11/18/21, 12:24 PM, "Tom Lane" <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)alvh(dot)no-ip(dot)org> writes:
>> If we change the name, and I support the idea that we do, I think a
>> good name would be "wal replay". I think "recovery" is not great
>> precisely because in a standby there is likely no crash that we're
>> recovering from.
>
> Fair point.
>
>> The word "replay" is at odds with the other names,
>> which stand for the device that carries out the task at hand
>> (checkpointer, bgwriter, wal sender/receiver); but the word "replayer"
>> seems to be extremely uncommon and IMO looks strange. If you see a
>> process that claims to be "wal replay", you know perfectly well what it
>> is.
>
> I'm less concerned about the "er" than about the fact that the name is
> two words. People will immediately shorten it to just "replay", eg
> as a part of names in the code, and I feel that that's confusing in
> its own way. Maybe we could run the words together, on the precedent
> of "walreceiver", but I never much liked that name either.

+1 to something like "wal replay" or "wal apply." My view is that
terms like "startup" and "recovery" indicate the goal of the process
while "replay" and "apply" just explain what it does. This would be
in line with the other processes (e.g., the WAL receiver receives WAL,
the checkpointer checkpoints, and the archiver archives). I don't
have any strong opinion about it being two words, but maybe I am just
conditioned from seeing walreceiver, walsender, and walwriter so
often.

Nathan