Re: SHOW TABLES

On Jul 15, 2010, at 5:20 PM, Simon Riggs wrote:

> On Thu, 2010-07-15 at 11:05 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Simon Riggs <simon(at)2ndQuadrant(dot)com> writes:
>>> The biggest turn off that most people experience when using PostgreSQL
>>> is that psql does not support memorable commands.
>>
>>> I would like to implement the following commands as SQL, allowing them
>>> to be used from any interface.
>>
>>> SHOW TABLES
>>> SHOW COLUMNS
>>> SHOW DATABASES
>>
>> This has been discussed before, and rejected before. Please see
>> archives.
>
> Many years ago. I think it's worth revisiting now in light of the number
> of people now joining the PostgreSQL community and the greater
> prevalence other ways of doing it. The world has changed, we have not.
>
> I'm not proposing any change in function, just a simpler syntax to allow
> the above information to be available, for newbies.
>
> Just for the record, I've never ever met anyone that said "Oh, this \d
> syntax makes so much sense. I'm a real convert to Postgres now you've
> shown me this". The reaction is always the opposite one; always
> negative. Which detracts from our efforts elsewhere.
>
> --
> Simon Riggs www.2ndQuadrant.com
> PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training and Services
>

simon is absolutely right here.
we should not mind being a little more user friendly in this area.
many people are simply used to this kind of stuff.

remember when you rejected something the last time (not necessarily software). was ist because you could not make it work in 2 min or was it because you did not like something else?
do you reject buying a car because of a non obvious screw in the engine or because "it somehow does not feel right"?

simon made an important point and i can simply agree - regardless of whether it has been discussed before or not.
if you die a beautiful death you are still dead after all.

regards,

hans

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