Re: Mid cycle release? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

No one would expect Oracle to install Oracle and walk away. We are not 
MySQL, nor MS Access.


> I can definitely see where you're coming from, it's a sort of tough-love 
> scenario. There are legitimate counter arguments, though. The most 
> obvious is that anyone who *does* evaluate their needs properly 
> shouldn't have too much trouble turning it off, whereas there are lots 
> of small database users out there who find having to set up a vacuum 
> cron a pain. Example: I'm in the process of setting up a typo blog, 
> using postgresql of course, but the database setup was secondary to the 
> main thing that I was doing, and I'd completely forgotten about setting 
> up a cron. Now I'm unlikely to produce blog posts at a rate that will 
> cause the database to grow out of the "minuscule" range, but it should 
> still be done, right?
> 
> I have to ask, what's wrong with lazy users? Software which allows you 
> to be lazy gives you a warm tingly feeling, and you install it on your 
> intranet server when no-one's looking. We want people to think of 
> postgresql that way.
> 
> There are lots of MySQL specific pieces of software out there that 
> started out as some guy/girl with a PHP and MySQL type of book. We can't 
> turn that clock back, but making postgresql easier for the masses has to 
> be a good thing for its adoption. The native win32 port is the poster 
> child for this. It was a big PR win, no?
> 
> I would argue that leaving autovacuum off is only justifiable if we feel 
> that it's going to be a bad choice for the majority of users. Many of 
> the users who frequent postgresql lists understand the trade-off, but 
> the ones that we're trying to attract don't. Is it better for them to 
> discover manual vacuums when they're trying to incrementally improve 
> performance (with the risk that they never discover them at all), or 
> when their database is running like a dog because they've never vacuumed 
> it at all?
> 
> One solution might be to turn it on in turn-key solutions: linux distro 
> RPMs, Win32 installer (is it on there already?) etc, but leave it turned 
> off in the source release. Would that help you, or are your clients 
> using RPMs or whatever?
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Tom
> 


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