Re: pg_migrator to /contrib in a later 9.0 beta

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 02:23, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
> Tom Lane wrote:
>> Dimitri Fontaine <dfontaine(at)hi-media(dot)com> writes:
>> > Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
>> >> I also think that the standards for contrib should not be so lax that a
>> >> completely new module can be added after beta.  (This is mostly informed
>> >> by the feeling that contrib should go away entirely.)
>>
>> > +1
>>
>> > For the record, the contrib replacement would look like proper Extension
>> > handling in dump&restore, PGXS support for windows, and PGAN for source
>> > level archive distribution. We'd still rely on distributions support for
>> > binaries.
>>
>> Both of you are living in some fantasy land.  The reason contrib is held
>> to a lower standard than core is that nobody is willing to put the same
>> level of effort into contrib.  There are modules in there (most of them,
>> in fact) that haven't been touched for years, other than as part of
>> system-wide search-and-replace patches.  Extension support is not going
>> to magically fix that and cause maintenance effort to appear from
>> nowhere.
>>
>> In the end, the main useful function that contrib serves is to provide
>> examples of how to write Postgres extensions.  Because of that, removing
>> it as Peter suggests doesn't seem like a good idea to me.
>
> So what do people want to do with pg_migrator?  I don't think calling
> pg_migrator a major features requires it to be in /bin.  We added full
> text search to /contrib years ago and that was a major feature.

There is a reason people said that "8.3 comes with full text search" -
that's when it really became a major feature to the outside world.
Before that, it wasn't included in most comparisons. It was a PITA to
install (well, not install, but upgrading when you had it, etc). (once
you knew the insides, it was a major feature yes, but people didn't
know about that)

A lot of people are not willing to put stuff labeled "contrib" on
their production boxes.

And as Tom says, even we *ourselves* acknowledge that things in
/contrib are held to a lower standard. If we put that label on
pg_migrator, it doesn't exactly signal people that this is something
they should use on their critical database.

--
Magnus Hagander
Me: http://www.hagander.net/
Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/