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

On 2021-Nov-18, Tom Lane wrote:

> Justin Pryzby <pryzby(at)telsasoft(dot)com> writes:
> > On Thu, Nov 18, 2021 at 12:24:14PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> >> 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
>
> Hm ... I might've found that, if it were in alphabetical order ...

Ugh, my mistake. If the consensus is not to rename, I'll move it to the
right place.

If we change the name, and I support the idea that we do, I think a
good name would be "wal replay". I think "recovery" is not great
precisely because in a standby there is likely no crash that we're
recovering from. The word "replay" is at odds with the other names,
which stand for the device that carries out the task at hand
(checkpointer, bgwriter, wal sender/receiver); but the word "replayer"
seems to be extremely uncommon and IMO looks strange. If you see a
process that claims to be "wal replay", you know perfectly well what it
is.

The glossary entry reads:

An auxiliary process that replays WAL during crash recovery and in a
physical replica.

(The name is historical: the startup process was named before
replication was implemented; the name refers to its task as it relates
to the server startup following a crash.)

If we rename, we can drop more than half of the entry and replace it
with "This process was previously known as the startup process".

... oh, I noticed another mistake: "WAL receiver" does not say
"(process)", like all other process entries do.

--
Álvaro Herrera 39°49'30"S 73°17'W — https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/