Re: [HACKERS] Re: HISTORY for 6.5.2

On 21-Sep-99 The Hermit Hacker wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Sep 1999, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
>> > My personal dislike for them is that they are incomplete...CREATE USER and
>> > CREATE DATABASE have a helluva lot of options available to it...using
>> > createuser, you don't know/learn abotu them...
>> >
>> > Force the admin to learn what they are doing...if they want to create
>> > short cut scripts, let *them* do it...
>>
>> But newbies can't do shortcuts. I think we need to keep it.
>
> Newbies can't read man pages to type 'CREATE USER <userid>' or 'CREATE
> DATABASE <database>'?

You're missing one minor point. It's highly probable you never experienced
it. The first few days (maybe even couple of weeks) PostgreSQL can be
intimidating. Most packages install the same way:

./configure
make
make install

and you can do it from whatever directory you want. Right from the
beginning, the postgres installation has you working from a directory
that you may not normally keep your sources in (I keep mine in /usr/local/src
as do many others), working as a user you just created so you're in an
unfamiliar environment. Then the redirection of the make process (or the
gmake process) monitoring it with tail.... For the first time installer
it can be intimidating. Hell, Innd 1.4 was easier to install the first
time. After doing it more than once (and using Tom's tip with makefile.custom)
all of that can be gotten around. Then the regression tests. Lets face
it, it's a big package - well worth the effort to learn it, but it's still
big. So after putting the poor newbie thru all of this trauma you want to
further traumatize him/her with man pages? :)

> We're not asking anyone to learn rocket science here...we leave that to
> Thomas :)

Good candidate too :)

Vince.
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