PROPOSAL: geqo improvement

Hello, List.

There are cases when GEQO returns a very bad plan in some rare
executions of a query. To decrease likehood of this happening, I
propose:

When GEQO detects that what it found is in fact a miserable plan it
restarts the search. Simple math shows that if the probability of a
bad plan found in one 'go' is p, the overall probability of a bad plan
is p^N .

GEQO would decide that the plan is bad when the calculated cost of the
plan would exceed the time spent planning so far a fixed number of
times (100 ? a configurable parameter ?) .
I think a function infering cost from time spent could be calculated
from cpu_operator_cost - or is there a better way?

As a safety mean I wish to limit the number of replannings to a fixed
value (10? 20? a configurable parameter?)

If I introduce some configuration variables, I plan to infer the
defaults from geqo_effort (no concrete plan for this now).

An alternative to restarting the search might be just extending it -
running the main loop of geqo() function longer. I plan restarting
because I`m afraid the real reason for getting bad plans could be that
the algorithm is getting into some local minimum and can`t get out. I
will explore that more.

If there is agreement to do this, it looks simple enough that I
volunteer to implement it. Please tell me what is the deadline for
this to make into 8.4 .

What I lack is good test cases to verify the solution.

Greetings
Marcin Mańk