Re: Should rename "startup process" to something else?

On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 12:24:14PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 11:05 AM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> >> Yeah, given current usage it would be better to call it the "recovery
> >> process". However, I'm feeling dubious that it's worth the cost to
> >> change. The "startup" name is embedded in a lot of places, I think,
> >> and people are used to it. I fear changing it would create more
> >> confusion than it removes.
>
> > As far as being used to it, I think hackers are, but regular users are
> > very much not.
>
> Being hackers ourselves, I'm not sure we're qualified to opine on
> that. I cannot say that I've noticed any questions about it on
> the mailing lists, though.

A data point: I was recently confused when I observed the "startup" process
running for a bit after restarting the instance (because connections were being
rejected) I concluded that the shutdown was unclean, and started to blame the
PGDG RPM's initscript [0].

Actually, the shutdown was clean, and the "startup" process was just slow doing
$somethingelse (I imagine this will be less confusing in pg15 - 9ce346eabf).

[0] I believe this is configured such that systemd could kill -9 the postmaster
(but that's not what happened in this case).
https://redmine.postgresql.org/issues/6855

If you rename "startup", I think "recovery" would be a bad choice, since it
seems to imply that recovery/wal replay was necessary.

> Personally I think making a glossary entry that explains what the
> process does would be a better plan than renaming it.

Since d3014fff4:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/glossary.html#GLOSSARY-STARTUP-PROCESS

--
Justin