Re: replacing Access/ Approach etc

On Sat, Sep 08, 2007 at 09:52:04AM +0200, Thomas Kellerer wrote:
> Zenaan Harkness wrote on 08.09.2007 07:03:
> >Hi, a friend of mine on Windows, is attempting to convert to using
> >PostgreSQL (and of course, I'm helping him).
> >
> >The installation gave an option to run as an application, rather than as
> >a service.
> >
> >Turns out, my friends login account has Admin privs, and postgres.exe
> >will not run in an account with admin privs.
> >
> >He wants to keep the "lightweight feel" and frankly I'd like that on my
> >Ubuntu box as well - to just fire up a local instance of postgresql
> >pointing at a particular "data" directory, and listing (on loopback/
> >localhost only) on an instance-specific port (point the exe at a local
> >.conf file).
>
> When I started using Postgres for more than just testing, I had the same
> feeling, but frankly the overhead of starting a PostgreSQL service is so
> small, that I now happily auto-start the service at boot time (Windows XP).
> You won't even notice that it's running (from a performance point of view).

Thanks. I'm confident of this.

There is a hurdle of mindset to overcome though. When DB2 only starts as
a service, and I can say "look here, postgres will start as an app, and
you can very simply target a specific instance at a specific directory",
this makes the 'sell' a lot easier.

My job as advocate, and administrator for new software installation, and
trainer for the new software, is all-up not as simple as I was hoping.
Of course, once I've solved the problem on windows once, forever and a
day it should be much easier thereafter.

The other psychological aspects are a sense of control (copy the
postgres startup batch file, change the destination 'data' directory to
the new location, give it a new port number and voila, new instance of
the application), as well as a sense of safety and simplicity ("this
instance relates to this directory, I don't have to go configuring stuff
inside the database for my new test instance location, so I won't be
clobbering data in the non-test location").

These psychological and control aspects should not be underestimated, I
say.

> >Is it useful goal to consider running multiple instances of pg, ala
> >microsoft access, lotus approach, etc?
>
> So my recommendation would be: do install it as a service (any OS), and
> create multiple databases. Once done that you don't need to worry about
> starting or stopping the thing. It's simply available. I'd think that
> starting Access has more overhead than having a PG server sitting in the
> background (doing nothing)

I don't doubt this. We're dealing with perception however. It is
satisfying to have absolute control, over location, port number, etc,
from a source (config/batch files) outside the database executable.
Especially when you want to quickly copy a whole development tree to run
some tests (new table layouts, a read-write database which testers can
use which is not the deployment database). The feel of control one gets
by being able to do all this with cp + a quick config file edit, is
empowering to the user.

A lack of a sense of control is simply one more barrier to potential
switchers. Make sense?

Thanks heaps
Zen

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