Move src/tools/backend/ to wiki

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:

What I'm wondering right now is what's the value of having this stuff
in the source code at all.

So it will be in sync with the version of the source it's with?
If we move it to the wiki it'll be impractical to maintain the info
for anything except HEAD.

regards, tom lane

Tom Lane wrote:

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:

What I'm wondering right now is what's the value of having this stuff
in the source code at all.

So it will be in sync with the version of the source it's with?
If we move it to the wiki it'll be impractical to maintain the info
for anything except HEAD.

Hmm, that's true, but I wonder how important that is, versus the
consideration that more eyes looking at it might make it more useful.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

So I just noticed that we have a description of the Pg innards in the
sourcecode, complete with a flowchart and all, at src/tools/backend.
I had already seen this graph years ago; what shocked me the most was
finding out that there's a pointer to it in the Developer's FAQ, in a
question that's absolutely unrelated to it.

BTW this is also exposed in the main website:

http://www.postgresql.org/developer/ext.backend.html

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

So I just noticed that we have a description of the Pg innards in the
sourcecode, complete with a flowchart and all, at src/tools/backend.
I had already seen this graph years ago; what shocked me the most was
finding out that there's a pointer to it in the Developer's FAQ, in a
question that's absolutely unrelated to it.

So I went ahead and moved its mention to a separate question, where it
has a lot more visibility. (I also added an URL to anoncvs, where
people can see it more readily.)

What I'm wondering right now is what's the value of having this stuff
in the source code at all. Why don't we move it to the Wiki and remove
it from the repo? Would anybody object to that idea? Having it on CVS
means that nobody is able to improve the text, which is kind of sad
because it's been neglected for the last 3 years.

I have no problem having it moved to the wiki, though it does have
HTML imagemap elements. I don't think much changes at the flow chart
level from release to release so it would fine if it was just CVS HEAD.
I also don't think many people do back-branch development.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

On Mon, 8 Sep 2008, Bruce Momjian wrote:

I don't think much changes at the flow chart level from release to
release so it would fine if it was just CVS HEAD. I also don't think
many people do back-branch development.

It's easy with Mediawiki to both 1) see the old version for those
situations and 2) copy the page to somewhere else to "tag" the one that
goes along with a particular release. If there is some version specific
stuff there it's straightforward to do something along one of those two
lines at the point it's needed.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

So I went ahead and moved its mention to a separate question, where it
has a lot more visibility. (I also added an URL to anoncvs, where
people can see it more readily.)

Perhaps the low visibility also has to do with the fact that
documentation is hidden under "tools".

What I'm wondering right now is what's the value of having this stuff
in the source code at all. Why don't we move it to the Wiki and remove
it from the repo? Would anybody object to that idea? Having it on CVS
means that nobody is able to improve the text, which is kind of sad
because it's been neglected for the last 3 years.

I think it is documentation and should therefore be kept in CVS. Once
we start applying the argument that things should be moved to the wiki
based on getting more people to work on it, we might as well move the
source code to the wiki altogether. ;-)

Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

So I went ahead and moved its mention to a separate question, where it
has a lot more visibility. (I also added an URL to anoncvs, where
people can see it more readily.)

Perhaps the low visibility also has to do with the fact that
documentation is hidden under "tools".

Well, with the way it was before it was even more hidden. Now at least
it has its own question, and has working links and all.

However I wonder how much value there really is in the developer's FAQ,
considering that some answers seem rather poor. For example the
answer on ereport() was wrong, and nobody ever pointed it out. The
answer on palloc/pfree is very incomplete too.

My question is, is this resource actually useful for somebody?

Once we start applying the argument that things should be moved to
the wiki based on getting more people to work on it, we might as well
move the source code to the wiki altogether. ;-)

Hey, now that's a clever idea!

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

However I wonder how much value there really is in the developer's FAQ,
considering that some answers seem rather poor. For example the
answer on ereport() was wrong, and nobody ever pointed it out. The
answer on palloc/pfree is very incomplete too.

I think the developer's FAQ has essentially been unmaintained for many
years. I think we should gradually migrate the content to other wiki
pages and eventually drop the FAQ.

On Fri, Sep 12, 2008 at 10:29:54AM +0300, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

However I wonder how much value there really is in the developer's
FAQ, considering that some answers seem rather poor. For example
the answer on ereport() was wrong, and nobody ever pointed it out.
The answer on palloc/pfree is very incomplete too.

I think the developer's FAQ has essentially been unmaintained for
many years. I think we should gradually migrate the content to
other wiki pages and eventually drop the FAQ.

+1 :)

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david.fetter@gmail.com

Remember to vote!
Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

However I wonder how much value there really is in the developer's FAQ,
considering that some answers seem rather poor. For example the
answer on ereport() was wrong, and nobody ever pointed it out. The
answer on palloc/pfree is very incomplete too.

I think the developer's FAQ has essentially been unmaintained for many
years. I think we should gradually migrate the content to other wiki
pages and eventually drop the FAQ.

In a way, this has already started; some answers are now just
pointers to other wiki pages or to the docs.

I think getting rid of the FAQ completely is not necessarily a good
idea; it seems useful as a collection of interesting questions. Moving
the contents to new pages is probably OK. Also, as the answers mature
on the Wiki, perhaps it'd be possible to move them to the SGML docs (and
reduce the Wiki answer to just a pointer).

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

I think getting rid of the FAQ completely is not necessarily a good
idea; it seems useful as a collection of interesting questions. Moving
the contents to new pages is probably OK. Also, as the answers mature
on the Wiki, perhaps it'd be possible to move them to the SGML docs (and
reduce the Wiki answer to just a pointer).

Yes, that's about the right plan.