Re: Proposal to use JSON for Postgres Parser format

On Mon, Sep 19, 2022 at 8:39 PM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> There are certainly use-cases for something like that, but let's
> be clear about it: that's a niche case of interest to developers
> and pretty much nobody else. For ordinary users, what matters about
> the node tree storage format is compactness and speed of loading.

Of course. But is there any reason to think that there has to be even
a tiny cost imposed on users?

> Our existing format is certainly not great on those metrics, but
> I do not see how "let's use JSON!" is a route to improvement.

The existing format was designed with developer convenience as a goal,
though -- despite my complaints, and in spite of your objections. This
is certainly not a new consideration.

If it didn't have to be easy (or even practical) for developers to
directly work with the output format, then presumably the format used
internally could be replaced with something lower level and faster. So
it seems like the two goals (developer ergonomics and faster
interchange format for users) might actually be complementary.

--
Peter Geoghegan