Re: First draft of PG 17 release notes

Hello,

I noticed that these two items in the current notes are separate:

<!--
Author: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)alvh(dot)no-ip(dot)org>
2024-03-25 [374c7a229] Allow specifying an access method for partitioned tables
Author: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)alvh(dot)no-ip(dot)org>
2024-03-28 [e2395cdbe] ALTER TABLE: rework determination of access method ID
-->

<listitem>
<para>
Allow specification of partitioned <link linkend="tableam">table
access methods</link> (Justin Pryzby, Soumyadeep Chakraborty,
Michael Paquier)
</para>
</listitem>

<!--
Author: Michael Paquier <michael(at)paquier(dot)xyz>
2024-03-08 [d61a6cad6] Add support for DEFAULT in ALTER TABLE .. SET ACCESS MET
-->

<listitem>
<para>
Add <literal>DEFAULT</literal> setting for <literal>ALTER TABLE
.. SET ACCESS METHOD</literal> (Michael Paquier)
</para>
</listitem>

They are very very closely related, so I suggest they should be
together as a single item. Also, the first one is somewhat strangely
worded IMO (we don't have "partitioned table access methods" -- rather,
we have table access methods for partitioned tables). Maybe something
like

* Improve ALTER TABLE ... SET ACCESS METHOD

This command can now also be applied to partitioned tables, so that it
can <link to "https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/sql-altertable.html#SQL-ALTERTABLE-DESC-SET-ACCESS-METHOD">
influence partitions created later</link>. (Justin, Soumyadeep, Michaël)

In addition, it now accepts the value DEFAULT to reset a previously
set value. (Michaël)

There's also a bunch of items on EXPLAIN, which could perhaps be grouped
in a single item with sub-paras for each individual change; I'd also
move it to the bottom of E.1.3.2.

--
Álvaro Herrera Breisgau, Deutschland — https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/
"This is a foot just waiting to be shot" (Andrew Dunstan)