Re: Improve "3.6. Inheritance" tutorial

On Thu, Oct 8, 2026 at 3:09 PM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> "David G. Johnston" <david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > Seems like an all-or-nothing proposal that is quite different from what
> is
> > done today and doesn't contribute significant added value.
> > The interplay between the tutorial and the authoritative reference
> sections
> > are substantially correct today. I'd advise making any changes try and
> fit
> > within the current setup rather than trying to redesign the entire thing.
>

I also agree with this point

>
> Not too long ago there was discussion of removing the tutorial's
> discussion of inheritance entirely, on the grounds that it's a legacy
> feature people don't use much anymore. (They do use partitioning,
> which is built on much the same infrastructure, but it presents as a
> completely different thing.) I could see doing that, or replacing
> the section with something about partitioning, but I can't get excited
> about putting significant work into that section with its current
> charter.
>

I see other people have come to similar concerns than me - I personally
find this feature may induce
bad database design from my POV and only make sense for partitioning.
However, the feature
is there, so the docs should reflect it. It should be removed from the docs
if the feature is dropped, but
that would be a discussion for other mailing list.

I also share your impression about partitioning, a tutorial should be made
for it as it is done for inheritance.
I'll make a proposal for it after I finish my first iteration on the book
in a new thread.

I'm stuck in this thread, I can't resolve the contradiction between "This
is small improvement" and "Maybe
but isn't worthy", in my mind both are right.

I'll accept the second, have a new direction with what Tom said and have
better documentation guidelines.
This is what I can make out of the effort put in this, so it's not wasted.

Thanks everyone!

> regards, tom lane
>