Re: initdb createuser commands

Mike, I agree with "the postgres way of doing things". I'm suggesting that

> these commands are sufficiently generic that they might clash
with other commands.

> It's also not obvious they are part of postgresql.

> Wouldn't it make more sense to make them subcommand, of, say, a top
level pga (postgres admin) command, a bit like how `mysqladmin` works

and finally

> the naming of these commands seems overly generic
and for a new user it's hard to know what commands are available since
there is no common prefix (e.g. pg_<tab>) for these commands

Just because things are working how they currently are doesn't mean
they can't be improved.

> If someone isn’t skilled in sql, the requests you’ve made won’t assist them at all.

This isn't just about someone who is or isn't skilled. I work with
MySQL, CouchDB, Redis, and various other technologies. Out of those
three, I'd say that Postgres has the worst and most inconsistently
named command line tools. It's a large overhead for day to day
operation to deal with inconsistency at any level.

It's not a particularly hard problem to fix and thus I think it's
worthy of some attention.

On 31 October 2016 at 12:51, Mike Sofen <msofen(at)runbox(dot)com> wrote:
> From: Samuel Williams Sent: Sunday, October 30, 2016 3:42 PM
> As a community I'd think that having feedback from a new user would be
> valuable since as you say, sometimes when you get ingrained into the "way of
> doing things" that you don't see how they could be improved or different.
>
> Samuel
>
> ------------------------
>
> I’d take a different tack. I spent 20 years with SQL Server and easily
> (almost gleefully) hopped over to Postgres and especially pgplsql and
> PgAdmin III, from using SqlServer Management Studio (SSMS – their
> admin/coding app).
>
>
>
> Sure, I had to learn the PG way of doing things, but really, it was a
> no-brainer. I had to spend a few extra cycles learning the PG best
> practices and particular way of doing things but it was trivial…google and
> done. The vast community has created massive amounts of examples for nearly
> everything imaginable – and some things I would never have imagined anyone
> would try to do – such that I don’t have to Lewis and Clark it but just dive
> right in and write code.
>
>
>
> IMO, nothing major needs changing in the language or command syntax – it’s
> logical and easy for anyone skilled in sql. If someone isn’t skilled in
> sql, the requests you’ve made won’t assist them at all.
>
>
>
> Mike Sofen (Synthetic Genomics)