DTrace docs, Open Items and Performance

Simon Riggs wrote:

I'm planning to
- add a new section to Performance Tips chapter called Dynamic
Tracing - rename the chapter Performance & Tuning.
- add some further intro stuff on chapter header page

In my mind it's a little late for revising the documentation structure.
I'd also think that DTrace is not a tuning tool but a monitoring tool
which might place it closer to the description of the statistics
collector. I think the original plan even placed it into the Internals
part.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

On Tue, 2006-11-28 at 12:09 +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Simon Riggs wrote:

I'm planning to
- add a new section to Performance Tips chapter called Dynamic
Tracing - rename the chapter Performance & Tuning.
- add some further intro stuff on chapter header page

In my mind it's a little late for revising the documentation structure.
I'd also think that DTrace is not a tuning tool but a monitoring tool
which might place it closer to the description of the statistics
collector. I think the original plan even placed it into the Internals
part.

An additional chapter then, in the internals section? Dynamictrace.sgml

Or a subsection in the Monitoring.sgml chapter? (with the statistics
collector stuff)

--
Simon Riggs
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:

Simon Riggs wrote:

I'm planning to
- add a new section to Performance Tips chapter called Dynamic

In my mind it's a little late for revising the documentation structure.
I'd also think that DTrace is not a tuning tool but a monitoring tool
which might place it closer to the description of the statistics
collector. I think the original plan even placed it into the Internals
part.

I was about to say the same. In my mind DTrace is primarily a hacker's
tool --- I do not foresee the average DBA using it. So it does not
belong in the Performance Tips chapter. A new chapter under Internals
is probably as good as anything.

regards, tom lane

On Tuesday 28 November 2006 10:05, Tom Lane wrote:

Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:

Simon Riggs wrote:

I'm planning to
- add a new section to Performance Tips chapter called Dynamic

In my mind it's a little late for revising the documentation structure.
I'd also think that DTrace is not a tuning tool but a monitoring tool
which might place it closer to the description of the statistics
collector. I think the original plan even placed it into the Internals
part.

I was about to say the same. In my mind DTrace is primarily a hacker's
tool --- I do not foresee the average DBA using it. So it does not
belong in the Performance Tips chapter. A new chapter under Internals
is probably as good as anything.

I'm not certain how best the postgresql specific probes will be used, but I
might disagree with the above take as we're already using some kernel level
dtrace probes to make DBA oriented tools... see
http://www.lethargy.org/~jesus/archives/74-PostgreSQL-performance-through-the-eyes-of-DTrace.html
for one specific example.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL