Re: Proof of concept: standalone backend with full FE/BE protocol

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 11:52 AM, Andres Freund <andres(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:
> On 2013-12-05 11:39:29 -0500, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> I think this proposal is a bit deadlocked now.
>>
>> - There are technical concerns about launching a server executable from
>> within a client.
>>
>> - There are conceptual concerns about promoting an embedded database mode.
>>
>> On the other hand:
>>
>> - Everyone would like to have a way to use psql (and other basic
>> clients) in stand-alone mode.
>> The only solutions I see are:
>>
>> 1. do nothing
>>
>> 2. do everything (i.e., existing terminal mode plus socket mode plus
>> embedded mode), letting the user work out the differences
>>
>> Pick one. ;-)
>
> 3) make it an explicit parameter, outside the database DSN, and let the
> clients contain a tiny bit of explict code about it. There really
> aren't that many clients that can use such a mode sensibly.
>
> If we ever want to support a real embedded mode, much, much more than
> this is needed. I don't think we should let that stop us from improving
> single user mode.

Yeah, seriously. I don't understand what the big deal is here. The
right design here is 99.44% clear here, and the committer (presumably
Tom) can handle the other 0.56% however he'd like. Let's do this and
move on.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company