Re: Survey: renaming/removing script binaries (createdb, createuser...)

Greg Sabino Mullane napsal(a):

<snip>

>> Nobody want to rename psql. Personaly, I dislike current command
>> names for long long time. Many times I tried create unix user by
>> createuser command. And these names could be potential names of
>> system commands.
>
> Yours is the first time I've heard of anyone with this problem.
> The useradd and adduser commands don't even start with the same
> letter. If it's that confusing, you can always use an alias or a
> symlink to make things more inline with what you want.

It is not about letters but about memory :-). Currently it is not problem for
me, but it was when I was starting play with Linux.

> For the record, I think any renaming is a terrible idea, and a solution
> in search of a problem. Any change, no matter how long it takes, will
> break untold number of scripts, make us look bad, and frustrate
> people, similar to the way that implicit cast removal did in 8.3, but
> without the Very Good Reason to show people why we made the change.

I understand this point of view. And it is reason also why I asked if people use
these commands or they prefer psql. For example nobody had complained that
"createtablespace" command is missing. Does it mean that nobody uses
tablespaces? It means everybody must use psql for tablespace creation. I
personally use psql for everything. Only sometimes I use vacumdb or createuser
command.

Unfortunately, I not good survey maker and some tools usage statistic could be
nice to have in survey as well. :(

I have lived with current names and I can live with them in the future as well.

> Additionally, once we make the change, to which version do we refer to
> in the docs or when answering questions? You can't safely refer to
> the new commands until they've had time to percolate through as people
> update their database. And considering that I still work with some 7.3
> system, and plenty of 7.4 ones, that could be a long time.

Doc is related to version. And if you look on postmaster command in latest
documentation that it says obsolete use postgres.

> *If* we're going to do this, at the very least it needs to be rolled
> out as a point revision update across all versions, so we minimize the
> confusion for people on older versions. We also need to keep symlinks
> or some other backwards-compatibilty around for a long time, *and* make
> a clean break at some future major version with lots of prior warning.

I don't think so, that backport is necessary, but backward compatibility is
obvious for new severals releases.

By the way does postgreSQL has some EOL strategy? There are lot of OBSOLETE
thinks mentioned in documentation, but I have never seen a list/roadmap when
they will be removed.

Zdenek