Re: MySQL versus Postgres

On 11/08/2010 04:01, Greg Smith wrote:
>> 3. The default configuration settings for PostgreSQL are not optimal
>> for performance. Can there be a recommended configuration file in the
>> installation (assuming certain amount of RAM and processor type) ?
>
> This doesn't work because there are many different types of database
> applications, and what's optimal even as a starting configuration for
> each type is very different. Also, hardware changes pretty fast; you'd
> be hard pressed to write down useful generic recommendations (or insert
> them into the core database code) that are still relevant at all after a
> release has been out a few years.

Well, many defaults are hardcoded into a file now. I'd like to see
'auto' among possible values of parameters, e.g.:

max_connections = auto
shared_buffers = auto
work_mem = auto

with PG wild guessing reasonable values based on system specs. It may be
a awful piece of code (getting system info is very platform specific),
and sometimes the guess may be wrong. Anyway nothing prevents PG to have
a postgresql_failsafe.conf.

Not that I'm advocating it. Complex systems need well-thought configuration.

.TM.