Re: proposal: alternative psql commands quit and exit

On Sat, Dec 9, 2017 at 12:59 PM, David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Dec 08, 2017 at 02:12:06PM -0500, Robert Haas wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 10:28 AM, Szymon Lipiński <mabewlun(at)gmail(dot)com>
wrote:
> > > Well, if I have a new program I usually read some documentation. It
really
> > > helps people to exit vim as well :)
> >
> > Look, I love vim and use it constantly, but no reasonable person is
> > going to hold it up as a good example of user-friendly software.
> > According to Wikipedia, it was written in 1976 by Bill Joy, and
> > computers have come a long way in the last 40 years. They are,
> > broadly, easier to use now. For example, current versions of vim let
> > you move around using new-fangled arrow keys, as if computers were
> > supposed to cater to the lowest common denominator! Real men (like
> > me) use hjkl to get around the screen, and look upon those who resort
> > to the arrow keys as Johnny-come-latelys. Nevertheless, I can hardly
> > fault vim/vi's concession to modernity in this regard.
> >
> > > Thinking this way for me psql's way is the intuitive one, because I
know it.
> > > Should I kindly ask Oracle to change their programs because I rather
want to
> > > use their software than reading their documentation?
> >
> > If you can convince Oracle to add support for \q to sqlplus, I say go
> > for it. Actually, what I'd like even better is if you could convince
> > them to add curses support, but I guess they would have done that 30
> > years ago if they were inclined to do it.
> >
> > Really good software -- which sqlplus is not -- doesn't make it
> > necessary to read the documentation. It helps you figure out how to
> > use it as you go. When I fire up a new app on my iPhone, it generally
> > gives me a clue how to use it. Sure, there's probably an app in the
> > Apple Store someplace that is absolutely unusable without reading the
> > documentation, but that's a bug, not a feature. It's expected that
> > you'll have to read the documentation to figure out how to use the
> > advanced features of any complicated program, but that doesn't mean we
> > should make simple things complicated just to scare off users that
> > aren't sufficiently committed to the Cause.
>
> +1
>

And what about create some way to create aliases for meta-commands in psql?
Something like:

\alias quit \q
\alias exit \q

We also can create a special config variable to enable/disable use of
aliases:

\set USE_ALIAS on

Regards,

--
Fabrízio de Royes Mello
Consultoria/Coaching PostgreSQL
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