Re: "data" not "datums"

On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 1:15 PM, Peter Eisentraut <
peter(dot)eisentraut(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:

> On 8/1/17 04:22, mahsh(dot)baheti(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
> > The following documentation comment has been logged on the website:
> >
> > Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/datatype-json.html
> > Description:
> >
> > In the section
> > https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/datatype-json.html
> >
> > Sub-section:
> > 8.14.2. Designing JSON documents effectively
> >
> > Original text:
> > &quot;but having a predictable structure makes it easier to write
> queries that
> > usefully summarize a set of &quot;documents&quot; (datums) in a
> table.&quot;
> >
> > Suggested text:
> > &quot;but having a predictable structure makes it easier to write
> queries that
> > usefully summarize a set of &quot;documents&quot; (data) in a
> table.&quot;
>
> "datum" means something specific in PostgreSQL, and several of those are
> most usefully "datums". "data" doesn't really convey the same meaning
> here.
>

Peter, ​While your point is accurate the fact is that this seems to be the
only place in the user-facing documentation, aside from "hacker targeted"
material, that the word "datum" in the PostgreSQL sense is used. However,
changing it to "data" doesn't do it for me either. Reading the entire
paragraph, including the first introduction of the term "JSON documents",
leads me to think that the best solution here is to remove the
double-quotes surrounding "documents" and remove the parenthetical
entirely. I'm not seeing how it adds or clarifies anything here - the
reader has been told that an alias for "json value" is "document".
Introducing the concept of "datum" here is just going to prompt questions
such as this.

David J.