Re: postgres --help-config

Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> > Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> >> I'm beginning to think that we should scrap it and start with a real
> >> design for 7.5. I know that's radical, but I don't think we're going to
> >> arrive at anything that anyone's going to like by the time we want to
> >> release.
>
> > The problem is how that affects Red Hat. What do they do with their
> > tool?
>
> I believe said tool is within a couple days of code freeze for initial
> release, in fact. We could probably still cope with a change in the
> spelling of the switches, but redesigning the output format or removing
> the functionality altogether would be a very nasty surprise.
>
> > > Let me be clear on this --- your tools is not part of the PostgreSQL
> > > community. We are not required to allow any of this functionality
> > > unless the community decides they want it.
>
> I'm really having a hard time responding to this line of argument
> politely. Where were all these complaints when the patch was proposed
> and accepted? If there's not time now to redesign the feature to your
> liking, it is *NOT* Red Hat's fault, it is *YOURS*. Yanking the rug out
> from under someone else's project just because you didn't review the
> patch adequately at the time is not my idea of how a community should act.

I thought you might have an emotional reaction to this issue.

I did not review these changes thoroughly because:

o There was no proposal on the switches and their usage.
o The commit message didn't mention any switches other than
--help-config.
o There are no docs to show the new flags.
o You were handling it, and I trusted your style, so I didn't
see a reason to study it more thoroughly.

Let's imagine how this would have worked for an outside project/company:

o Project leader comes to us and says they want to make a PostgreSQL
admin tool.
o They explain their needs and we agree on how to implement it.
o We implement the feature as discussed.

Would we have agreed to adding all those flags? I don't think so. We
would have given them a clean output, and asked them to handle the
functionality in their code, which is probably the correct approach.

This procedure is in our developer's FAQ:

The usual process for source additions is:

o Review the TODO list.
o Discuss hackers the desirability of the fix/feature.
o How should it behave in complex circumstances?
o How should it be implemented?
o Submit the patch to the patches list.
o Answer email questions.
o Wait for the patch to be applied.

Now, we have Red Hat having you add a patch on July 4 (posted for review
June 30), very near feature freeze, but it meets a discussed need
(--help-config), so it goes in. I only learned about it when Peter saw
the C code handling the new flags and asked questions about it. I do
see the patch submitted, with clear illustration of the flags:

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-patches/2003-06/msg00420.php

I guess I thought those flags were for Red Hat's tool or a separate
utility, but it clearly states it is part of the postgres binary, so
that was my fault.

It looks like this all became visible on September 29:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=29402.1065021420%40sss.pgh.pa.us&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dhelp-config%2Bgroup:comp.databases.postgresql.*%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dcomp.databases.postgresql.*%26selm%3D29402.1065021420%2540sss.pgh.pa.us%26rnum%3D2

I think I am agreeing with Peter's comment in that email thread:

I'm quite unhappy about the --help-config option. It was developed
without discussion, it was installed hastily, we don't have any
information about that interactive configuration application it's supposed
to target, it's not documented, it's full of unfinished business, it
certainly doesn't make the code easier to maintain because all the
documenation is duplicated, but not one-to-one. At this point, I wouldn't
spend a lot of time trying to make sense of it. We can revisit it again
in the next release and investigate how we can eliminate the duplication
of effort between the documentation and the code.

We certainly want to keep Red Hat happy. Will Red Hat be upset if we
leave it unchanged for 7.4.X and rip this out and redo it in 7.5?

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
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