Re: DOCS - pg_replication_slot . Fix the 'inactive_since' description

On Tue, Sep 3, 2024 at 4:35 PM Bertrand Drouvot
<bertranddrouvot(dot)pg(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Sep 03, 2024 at 10:43:14AM +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 2, 2024 at 9:14 AM shveta malik <shveta(dot)malik(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Mon, Sep 2, 2024 at 5:47 AM Peter Smith <smithpb2250(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > > > ----
> > > >
> > > > To summarize, the current description wrongly describes the field as a
> > > > time duration:
> > > > "The time since the slot has become inactive."
> > > >
> > > > I suggest replacing it with:
> > > > "The slot has been inactive since this time."
> > > >
> > >
> > > +1 for the change. If I had read the document without knowing about
> > > the patch, I too would have interpreted it as a duration.
> > >
> >
> > The suggested change looks good to me as well. I'll wait for a day or
> > two before pushing to see if anyone thinks otherwise.
>
> I'm not 100% convinced the current wording is confusing because:
>
> - the field type is described as a "timestamptz".
> - there is no duration unit in the wording (if we were to describe a duration,
> we would probably add an unit to it, like "The time (in s)...").
>

Hmm. I assure you it is confusing because in English "The time since"
implies duration, and that makes the sentence contrary to the
timestamptz field type. Indeed, I cited the Chat-GPT's interpretation
above specifically so that people would not just take this as my
opinion.

> That said, if we want to highlight that this is not a duration, what about?
>
> "The time (not duration) since the slot has become inactive."
>

There is no need to "highlight" anything. To avoid confusion we only
need to say what we mean.

======
Kind Regards,
Peter Smith.
Fujitsu Australia