Re: Server instrumentation for 8.1

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-hackers-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
> [mailto:pgsql-hackers-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of
> Andrew Sullivan
> Sent: 11 May 2005 21:04
> To: pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Server instrumentation for 8.1
>
> On Wed, May 11, 2005 at 04:44:21PM +0000, Andreas Pflug wrote:
> >
> > Yes yes I know, all of these can be done by a local
> administrator with
> > console access and an editor and cmd line tools, but there
> are indeed
> > people that do *not* have console access, or like to use
> decent tools....
>
> Is there a reason they couldn't be bundled into a separate package,
> and either put in contrib/ or (my preference) put on gforge or
> whatever? The less-is-more approach in the default source seems to
> me to be a good thing. I'm not convinced that packaged systems
> should ship that way -- maybe these should be included in desktop
> systems -- but enabled-by-default for many of these things seems to
> me to be too dangerous.

These functions are all superuser only where required, and are used to
provide support for features expected as standard by many people.
Keeping them in separate packages is a) inconvenient and b) could have a
negative effect on our reputation, because people will say things like
"yes, PostgreSQL can do XYZ as SQL or Oracle does, but you need to
install this contrib module, this set of functions from www.pgadmin.org
just to view your logfiles and see how big your database is...".

IMO, the functions we are talking about are in a different league from
things like PLs - it makes sense to download them as required as they
are entirely application specific. It doesn't make sense to require
additional components to edit the server config files and view logs etc
if your preferred interface just happens to be a GUI.

Regards, Dave