Re: pg_ctl idempotent option

2013-01-15 20:28 keltezéssel, Bruce Momjian írta:
> On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 10:25:23AM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> writes:
>>> Vik Reykja escribi�:
>>>> On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>>>>> Idempotent is a ten-dollar word. Can we find something that average
>>>>> people wouldn't need to consult a dictionary to understand?
>>>> I disagree that we should dumb things down when the word means exactly what
>>>> we want and based on the rest of this thread is the only word or word
>>>> cluster that carries the desired meaning.
>> I'm not quite convinced that it means *exactly* what we want. The
>> dictionary definition, according to my laptop's dictionary, is "denoting
>> an element of a set that is unchanged in value when multiplied or
>> otherwise operated on by itself". I'm well aware that computer people
>> often use it to mean "an operation that doesn't change the system state
>> if the state is already what's wanted", but I think that's probably an
>> abuse of the mathematical usage. And in any case, I'm not sure that
>> non-hackers would immediately recognize the term, nor be enlightened by
>> their dictionaries. But ...
> I have heard idempotent used several times by our folks, and I didn't
> know what it meant either. I figured it was a "strong item". ;-) I
> just looked it up.

The math term used in Hungarian for idempotent is mirror translated
to "leave it in place". The term also has a slang usage for beating somebody up. ;-)

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