Re: Renaming of pg_xlog and pg_clog

On 2016-08-26 17:11:00 -0400, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 8/26/16 12:28 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> > Also, I'd just as soon not move/rename things
> > that don't really need it.
>
> I'm just as happy with not changing anything. But if we're going to
> rename stuff, let's at least think about something slightly more
> comprehensive. Any rename is going to break a bunch of stuff. But if
> we break it in a way that reduces the need for future discussion or
> changes, it would at least be a small win in the long run.

I do think there's an order of magnitude between the impact between
moving some and moving everything. And that's going to impact
cost/benefit calculations.

Moving e.g. all ephemeral files into a (possibly configurable) directory
is going to hardly impact anyone. Renaming pg_logical into something
different (FWIW, it was originally named differently...) will hopefully
impact nobody, excepting some out of date file exclusion lists possibly.

But moving config files, and even pg_xlog (which we document to be
symlinkable somewhere else) imo is different.

The other thing is that the likelihood of getting anywhere by doing
radical one-off redesigns is approximately 0.