Re: Extension Templates S03E11

On Fri, 2013-12-13 at 13:42 -0500, Stephen Frost wrote:
> * Jeff Davis (pgsql(at)j-davis(dot)com) wrote:
> > For what it's worth, I think the idea of extension templates has good
> > conceptual integrity. Extensions are external blobs. To make them work
> > more smoothly in several ways, we move them into the catalog. They have
> > pretty much the same upsides and downsides of our existing extensions,
> > aside from issues directly related to filesystem vs. catalog.
>
> I've never particularly liked the idea that extensions are external
> blobs, to be honest.

It did feel a bit like you were arguing about extensions as they exist
today, rather than extension templates.

To make much more progress, it seems like we either need an ingenious
idea about how to change existing extensions to work for all purposes,
or we need to invent a new concept.

> but most of those cases also look to have external
> dependencies (eg: FDWs), which really makes me doubt this notion that
> they could be distributed independently and outside of the OS packaging
> system (or that it would be a particularly good idea to even try...).

As I pointed out before, many language communities handle libraries
outside of the OS packaging system, e.g. cpan, gems, cabal, pear, etc.
Arguably, those libraries are more likely to have external dependencies,
and yet they find it a better solution anyway.

And you are completely ignoring the common case where people are just
using C because *postgres says they have to*. For instance, defining new
data types, implementing the GiST/GIN/SP-GiST APIs, or using some C hook
in the backend. Those may have no external dependencies at all.

Regards,
Jeff Davis