Re: A smaller default postgresql.conf

Joshua Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> writes:
> If we move to the above route, we end up in an environment with a
> single source for "official" documentation and we can always point to
> that.

Yeah, the fundamental point here is whether or not postgresql.conf
should be trying to serve as part of our system documentation. I'm
inclined to think that any comments in it should be more about why these
particular values have been set, and not "here are some values you might
like to twiddle". So initdb might emit

# Set by initdb from probing kernel limits 2008-08-11
max_connections = 100
shared_buffers = 32MB

# Set by initdb from its locale environment: LANG = en_US
lc_messages = en_US
lc_monetary = en_US
[etc]

I'm really not in favor of having comments in the conf file that try to
tell you about stuff you might want to set, much less why. That task
properly belongs to some kind of introductory chapter in the SGML docs.
Novice DBAs are unlikely even to *find* the config file, let alone look
inside it, if there's not an introductory chapter telling them about
Things They Ought To Do.

regards, tom lane