Re: proposal: alternative psql commands quit and exit

On Fri, Dec 8, 2017 at 8:19 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> "David G. Johnston" <david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> A psql novice is unlikely
> to be familiar with that concept, let alone know that \r or ^C is the
> way to get there. There's a weak argument that "help" is of some
> value because it's likely to be the first thing a novice types, but
> that doesn't apply for quit/exit. The typical interaction I'd foresee
> is more like
>
> postgres=> select 2+2 (user forgets semicolon)
> postgres-> help
> postgres-> quit
> postgres-> exit
>
> with nothing accomplished except to increase the user's frustration
> each time. Eventually she'll hit on ^D and get out of it, but none
> of these allegedly novice-friendly "features" helped at all.
>

​help -> exit -> (they may think of "quit" ...)​

My major CLI experience is bash and for this I use "exit", and in Windows
you go to "File -> Exit". Quit makes sense but exit is more common. I'm
inclined to buy into this proposal for that reason alone. The usage
problem you demonstrate is only somewhat valid since the level of
frustration depends on whether they are just tying commands or know from
the docs that "quit" is supposed to work. And even backslash commands
won't work if you leaving the session in the middle of text literal. So,
I'll agree but all of the mitigation above means I don't think this
proposal makes the situation much (if at all) worse if they aren't reading
the docs and can be lessened if they are.

David J.