Re: proposal: alternative psql commands quit and exit

On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 6:26 PM, Craig Ringer <craig(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:

>
>> There is also stackexchange question with 51000 views that asks how to
>> start the postgresql client. Should we rename psql to mysql to help
>> new users too?
>>
>
> Frankly, that's a legit question and I don't think it's one we should be
> mocking. The application is "PostgreSQL" and it's not at all surprising
> that people don't find it immediately obvious that the client is "psql".
> Yes, we have a manual, but if they have to refer to it for something that
> trivial then that's an opportunity for us to improve UX.
>
> Especially since "postgres" isn't on the PATH in most installs.
>
> I'd suggest having 'postgres' print a help msg suggesting "the client
> program is psql"... but that does no good if you get
>

​This seems like a somewhat easy one to solve...add "postgresql" "postgres"
"postgre" "pgsql" "theelephantdb" "sql" and whatever other names we think
come to people's minds and place them in the client bin directory right
next to psql. Have them do something useful - either the equivalent of
"exec psql" or "echo 'use psql to invoke the client'". Make it a
compile-time option so package maintainers who disagree (or place postgres
server in the path) can opt-out (or opt-in) - but at least not every
packager would need to write their own. That said, I consider this
particular aliasing problem to be a packaging problem and not the
responsibility of core.

David J.