Re: [HACKERS] Happy column dropping

> At 02:43 PM 1/23/00 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> >> I certainly don't want to discourage Peter, either, and perhaps
> >> was a bit too harsh. But release of a feature this half-baked
> >> would fit the stereotype many people have held towards free,
> >> open source software, and postgres in particular.
>
> >I again am totally confused by the reaction to this.
>
> >Peter has done a lot for 7.0. Only Tom Lane and Jan have done more work
> >on 7.0 than Peter. He has also fixed many TODO items from the list.
>
> Yes, and that's great. I'm not commenting about those things, though.
> Though I have to say, having just finally built the pre-7.0 sources,
> I like the new psql formatting.
>
> That doesn't mean I have to like an "alter ... drop column" that doesn't
> really implement "alter ... drop column", though, does it? :)

But is this really a bad thing. I think it is acceptible as is. We
currently tell people in the FAQ that do drop a column, do a SELECT INTO
... ALTER RENAME. That loses more than Peter's version.

>
> >We is not releasing tomorrow. He is putting in what he has and asking
> >for advise.
>
> Perhaps I'm suffering from a misperception, then...my understanding
> was that his having committed the changes meant they would be showing
> up in the upcoming V7.0 Beta release.

Well, my assumption is that either Peter will add the missing
functionality, or we will vote on whether to enable/disable it in 7.0.
One line in gram.y and it is disabled.

I can tell you that I certainly will vote for it as enabled, even with
the limitations, because CLUSTER has a bigger problem. Maybe we just
add a NOTICE to CLUSTER and DROP COLUMN and be done with it.

I can also say I would never have thought about the items Peter asked
about. I would have just implemented it as he did and maybe never even
considered the limitations.

>
> > Yes, it would have been better if he would have discussed
> >this first. However, he is writing _huge_ amounts of PostgreSQL code.
> >Look at the new psql or initdb, or the other items he has done. Maybe
> >he is too busy coding to bring up issues on the list.
>
> >As long as he addresses concerns we have, I can live with some
> >non-perfect code. He is relatively new to this. Honestly, only Tom
> >Lane and Jan are as energetic about 7.0 as Peter, so why rock the boat.
>
> This sounds a bit like the old management technique of measuring
> productivity by counting lines of code! I should hope quality counts
> for even more than quantity. Shouldn't it?
>
> (and, no, I'm not implying that Peter's contributions are of poor
> quality, I'm just reacting to your point)

When I say huge amount of code, I mean huge rewrites of terriblily
unstuctured code into nice neat code. Look at the new psql vs. the old
code.

We can't expect people to just walk up and produce portable,
style-conforming, totally functional code from day 1 or even year 1.
We work with people and point them in the right direction.

You know why ANALYZE is part of VACUUM? Because at the time I didn't
know how to scan a table. Vacuum already did that, so I piggybacked on
that code.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle
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