Re: Proposal: roll pg_stat_statements into core

On Wed, Sep 04, 2019 at 12:14:50AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net> writes:
> > * Alvaro Herrera (alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com) wrote:
> >> I think there is a false dichotomy here. Migrating an extension out of
> >> contrib doesn't have to equate making it no longer an extension. We
> >> could, instead, keep it being an extension, but move it out of contrib
> >> and into (say) src/extensions/ so that it becomes installed and
> >> available by default, but still an extension. Users won't have to
> >> install a separate contrib package, but they would still have to run
> >> CREATE EXTENSION.
>
> > I don't agree that it's a false dichotomy- from a user experience, you
> > aren't really changing anything with this approach and the entire point
> > is that most of these things should just be available in core.
>
> I don't think that auto-installing such things requires changing much
> of anything. See plpgsql, which is auto-installed now but still sits
> in src/pl/ alongside other PLs that are not auto-installed. Similarly,
> there's nothing really stopping us from choosing to install some
> module of contrib by default; rearranging the source tree is not a
> prerequisite to that.
>
> The situation with pg_stat_statements is more than that, since what
> David is requesting is not merely that we auto-install that extension
> but that we automatically push it into shared_preload_libraries.

What I am actually suggesting is that it not be a separate library at
all, i.e. that all its parts live in PostgreSQL proper.

> > ...maybe we need a way to turn on/off things like pg_stat_statements but
> > that should have been a runtime "track_stat_statements" or some such,
> > similar to other things like "track_io_timing", not an "independent"
> > extension that is actually developed, managed, and released just as core
> > is.
>
> A key point that hasn't been highlighted in this discussion is that having
> pg_stat_statements as an extension is proof-of-concept that such features
> *can* be implemented outside of core. Don't you think that there are
> probably people maintaining private variants of that extension, who would
> be really sad if we removed or broke APIs they need for it once
> pg_stat_statements is part of core?

Nowhere near the number of people who are inconvenienced, at a
minimum, by the high barriers needed in order to install and use it in
its current form.

Best,
David.
--
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778

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