Pattern for use of the alias "Postgres"

On 10/25/07, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:

So, for the FAQ, which currently uses the second-entry-per-paragraph
logic, should it be changed to the logic suggested above where every
mention but the first is "Postgres"? (This will of course affect the
documentation changes when we are ready to discuss those.)

+1

Seems like the next logical step for the alias.

--
Jonah H. Harris, Sr. Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324
EnterpriseDB Corporation | fax: 732.331.1301
499 Thornall Street, 2nd Floor | jonah.harris@enterprisedb.com
Edison, NJ 08837 | http://www.enterprisedb.com/

On Thursday 25 October 2007 11:32, Bruce Momjian wrote:

[ BCC to docs because this might affect documentation too.]

You probably remember the discussion about promoting the use of the
alias "Postgres" in addition to the official name "PostgreSQL". I have
changed the FAQ so that in paragraphs with multiple references to
"PostgreSQL" we also use the alias "Postgres".

I have talked about a similar change to our documentation and perhaps
the web site, but I am _not_ ready to discuss those.

What I want to ask about is an idea a few people have mentioned. They
don't like that we change usage in the same paragraph. The suggestion
is to mention that "Postgres" is an alias to "PostgreSQL" at the top of
the document and just use "Postgres" in the remainder of the document.

This seems like a lot more use of the alias than I though we wanted as a
group, but because several of the people suggesting this also didn't
want the alias at all, I figure I should ask and we can discuss it.

So, for the FAQ, which currently uses the second-entry-per-paragraph
logic, should it be changed to the logic suggested above where every
mention but the first is "Postgres"? (This will of course affect the
documentation changes when we are ready to discuss those.)

IMHO (and others as well, since this has been raised by others as well) this
only makes are docs / faqs / etc... more confusing, and I think the use of
both names scattered through is more confusing. We should strive to be
consistent with our useage, whichever name we want to use.

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

"Robert Treat" <xzilla@users.sourceforge.net> writes:

On Thursday 25 October 2007 11:32, Bruce Momjian wrote:

So, for the FAQ, which currently uses the second-entry-per-paragraph
logic, should it be changed to the logic suggested above where every
mention but the first is "Postgres"? (This will of course affect the
documentation changes when we are ready to discuss those.)

IMHO (and others as well, since this has been raised by others as well) this
only makes are docs / faqs / etc... more confusing, and I think the use of
both names scattered through is more confusing. We should strive to be
consistent with our useage, whichever name we want to use.

IMHO the FAQ is an informal document like email or wiki pages. It should use
whatever the maintainer feels most comfortable with (and use it consistently).
There should be an FAQ entry explaining the relationship. Effectively a
second-entry-per-document rule, not second-entry-per-paragraph.

The manual and reference are part of the source base and should consistently
use the same name as the rest of the source.

--
Gregory Stark
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

Bruce Momjian wrote:

So, for the FAQ, which currently uses the second-entry-per-paragraph
logic, should it be changed to the logic suggested above where every
mention but the first is "Postgres"? (This will of course affect the
documentation changes when we are ready to discuss those.)

Just undo the whole thing. The project name is what it is.

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

On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 21:44 +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Bruce Momjian wrote:

So, for the FAQ, which currently uses the second-entry-per-paragraph
logic, should it be changed to the logic suggested above where every
mention but the first is "Postgres"? (This will of course affect

the

documentation changes when we are ready to discuss those.)

Just undo the whole thing. The project name is what it is.

+1.

Regards,
--
Devrim GÜNDÜZ
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: plPHP, ODBCng - http://www.commandprompt.com/

Devrim G���ND���Z wrote:
-- Start of PGP signed section.

On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 21:44 +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Bruce Momjian wrote:

So, for the FAQ, which currently uses the second-entry-per-paragraph
logic, should it be changed to the logic suggested above where every
mention but the first is "Postgres"? (This will of course affect

the

documentation changes when we are ready to discuss those.)

Just undo the whole thing. The project name is what it is.

+1.

Let's not get sidetracked here. There was already agreement in advocacy
to promote the use of the alias, and this thread is to discuss that, not
to revisit whether we should use an alias or not. If you want to bring
up that issue, start a thread and try to get agreement on it.

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

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

On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:10:31 -0400 (EDT)
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:

Just undo the whole thing. The project name is what it is.

+1.

Let's not get sidetracked here. There was already agreement in
advocacy to promote the use of the alias, and this thread is to
discuss that, not to revisit whether we should use an alias or not.
If you want to bring up that issue, start a thread and try to get
agreement on it.

Woah, let's be very clear here. There was zero agreement to promote the
name postgres. There was agreement to state that Postgres was an
acceptable form of the word PostgreSQL.

Which I do still agree with, but that is far from "promoting".

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/
UNIQUE NOT NULL
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/

Hi,

On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 16:10 -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:

There was already agreement in advocacy to promote the use of the
alias,

Really?
--
Devrim GÜNDÜZ
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: plPHP, ODBCng - http://www.commandprompt.com/

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
-- Start of PGP signed section.

On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:10:31 -0400 (EDT)
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:

Just undo the whole thing. The project name is what it is.

+1.

Let's not get sidetracked here. There was already agreement in
advocacy to promote the use of the alias, and this thread is to
discuss that, not to revisit whether we should use an alias or not.
If you want to bring up that issue, start a thread and try to get
agreement on it.

Woah, let's be very clear here. There was zero agreement to promote the
name postgres. There was agreement to state that Postgres was an
acceptable form of the word PostgreSQL.

Which I do still agree with, but that is far from "promoting".

Here is a thread where I propose the "promoting" idea and general
agreement on it:

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2007-09/msg00257.php

and here is where I think you are agreeing to do such promotion in the
FAQ, at least:

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2007-09/msg00279.php

I have the email addresses and opinions of a majority of advocacy
posters. I can post it again if you want or we can go through this all
again, probably with the same result.

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

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

Hi Bruce,

On Thu, 2007-10-25 at 16:50 -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:

I have the email addresses and opinions of a majority of advocacy
posters. I can post it again if you want or we can go through this
all again, probably with the same result.

So you say -advocacy list members are the ones who can change project's
name? Interesting.

Regards,
--
Devrim GÜNDÜZ
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: plPHP, ODBCng - http://www.commandprompt.com/

On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:50:34 -0400 (EDT)
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:

Woah, let's be very clear here. There was zero agreement to promote
the name postgres. There was agreement to state that Postgres was an
acceptable form of the word PostgreSQL.

Which I do still agree with, but that is far from "promoting".

Here is a thread where I propose the "promoting" idea and general
agreement on it:

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2007-09/msg00257.php

and here is where I think you are agreeing to do such promotion in the
FAQ, at least:

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2007-09/msg00279.php

No. That was me stating that the current FAQ stating that Postgres was
an acceptable form of PostgreSQL was enough. Which I do still agree
with.

I have stated that *if* we were going to make wholesale documentation
changes that we should do it in the form of PostgreSQL, hereafter known
as Postgres...

I don't like it but I believe it would be a fair compromise.

I have the email addresses and opinions of a majority of advocacy
posters. I can post it again if you want or we can go through this
all again, probably with the same result.

You are welcome to bring it up again. I am not going to. I find the
issue currently closed with the FAQ entry.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--

=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/
UNIQUE NOT NULL
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL Replication: http://www.commandprompt.com/products/

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

Woah, let's be very clear here. There was zero agreement to promote
the name postgres. There was agreement to state that Postgres was an
acceptable form of the word PostgreSQL.

Which I do still agree with, but that is far from "promoting".

Here is a thread where I propose the "promoting" idea and general
agreement on it:

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2007-09/msg00257.php

and here is where I think you are agreeing to do such promotion in the
FAQ, at least:

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-advocacy/2007-09/msg00279.php

No. That was me stating that the current FAQ stating that Postgres was
an acceptable form of PostgreSQL was enough. Which I do still agree
with.

OK, I misunderstood then. I was asking where to promote it and you were
saying just the FAQ which I thought meant promote usage in the FAQ.
Sorry.

I have stated that *if* we were going to make wholesale documentation
changes that we should do it in the form of PostgreSQL, hereafter known
as Postgres...

I don't like it but I believe it would be a fair compromise.

Yea, I think so. If we make that change we could go until 8.4 beta and
then see how we are doing with making an easily-prounced alias name. We
might need to make no further changes, or we might want to change it
back for some reason.

I will give another 1-2 days for feedback on the "pattern" usage issue.
So far I think everyone so far has said they like just a first mention
of PostgreSQL in the document and then Postgres in the rest of the
document _if_ we are going to do that.

Then I will start a new thread to ask about actually doing that change.

I thought the second-in-paragraph style was minimal because it is like,
e.g. "Bill Cohen was caught stealing. Cohen was seen under the bushes
on Cobbs Lane.". Or with Coke, "Coca-cola is expense. Coke is also bad
for you". But it seems people don't like that usage in practice.

(FYI, I see some "Postgres" mentions have gotten in the 8.3 release
notes already from Tom. I will have to adjust those once we make a
final decision, but you can see how it looks now.)

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

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

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Let's not get sidetracked here. �There was already agreement in
advocacy to promote the use of the alias, and this thread is to
discuss that, not to revisit whether we should use an alias or not.

Advocacy opinions have no bearing on proper documentation writing. Nor
do I believe that there was an actual agreement.

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

Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Let's not get sidetracked here. ?There was already agreement in
advocacy to promote the use of the alias, and this thread is to
discuss that, not to revisit whether we should use an alias or not.

Advocacy opinions have no bearing on proper documentation writing. Nor
do I believe that there was an actual agreement.

I disagree.

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

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

On Thu, Oct 25, 2007 at 04:10:31PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:

Let's not get sidetracked here. There was already agreement in advocacy
to promote the use of the alias, and this thread is to discuss that, not

I object to this declaration of consensus. I think there was an
agreement that the FAQ entry we had, or perhaps something slightly
stronger, was ok. "Promotion" is quite another matter, and I don't
believe there was any such agreement. I recall arguing rather
strongly that such an undertaking needs a _clear plan_ and that it
should not be in any case undertaken for 8.3, because the suggestion
came too late in the release cycle to put the necessary planning into
the matter.

What is the giant panic on this matter, anyway?

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
However important originality may be in some fields, restraint and
adherence to procedure emerge as the more significant virtues in a
great many others. --Alain de Botton

Andrew Sullivan wrote:

On Thu, Oct 25, 2007 at 04:10:31PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:

Let's not get sidetracked here. There was already agreement in advocacy
to promote the use of the alias, and this thread is to discuss that, not

I object to this declaration of consensus. I think there was an
agreement that the FAQ entry we had, or perhaps something slightly
stronger, was ok. "Promotion" is quite another matter, and I don't
believe there was any such agreement. I recall arguing rather
strongly that such an undertaking needs a _clear plan_ and that it
should not be in any case undertaken for 8.3, because the suggestion
came too late in the release cycle to put the necessary planning into
the matter.

What is the giant panic on this matter, anyway?

There is no panic. In fact whatever change to documentation we do will
not be seen until 8.3 final.

In 1-2 days there will be a request on advocacy for promotion in both
the FAQ and documentation and we can see if we can get consensus then.

Frankly, what I am seeing is that the minority who don't like the alias
are "trolling" or making procedural objections in an attempt to prevent
alias adoption. Or perhaps my perception is incorrect.

I am also seeing that few like my idea of doing the
second-mention-in-a-paragraph so that is going to be removed once we
have that discussion.

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

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

On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 02:35:43PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:

Frankly, what I am seeing is that the minority who don't like the alias
are "trolling" or making procedural objections in an attempt to prevent
alias adoption. Or perhaps my perception is incorrect.

I resent the characterisation. I am not trying to prevent alias
adoption. I'm objecting to exactly the same thing I have objected to
all along: shoddy, half-thought changes to the public image of the
project, undertaken with rather less planning and forethought than
even the most trivial feature change to the codebase. As I've said
before, as far as I'm concerned we can change the name to Postgres or
TiGres or Bob the Wonder Dog; but we need to do it in a planned way,
so that we don't introduce more needless confusion.

But I give up. If your answer to these arguments is either
declaration of consensus in the face of continued reasoned
objections, or _ad hominem_ attacks on the objectors (you call us
"trolls"), then I can only conclude that you've made up your mind and
you're going to do what you want. In that case, I may as well not
waste the time to argue against it, because nothing I say will make
any difference.

Regards,

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The plural of anecdote is not data.
--Roger Brinner

[ BCC to docs.]

FYI, since no one liked my second-in-paragraph usage of "Postgres" in
the FAQ and developer's FAQ, I have removed it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

bruce wrote:

[ BCC to docs because this might affect documentation too.]

You probably remember the discussion about promoting the use of the
alias "Postgres" in addition to the official name "PostgreSQL". I have
changed the FAQ so that in paragraphs with multiple references to
"PostgreSQL" we also use the alias "Postgres".

I have talked about a similar change to our documentation and perhaps
the web site, but I am _not_ ready to discuss those.

What I want to ask about is an idea a few people have mentioned. They
don't like that we change usage in the same paragraph. The suggestion
is to mention that "Postgres" is an alias to "PostgreSQL" at the top of
the document and just use "Postgres" in the remainder of the document.

This seems like a lot more use of the alias than I though we wanted as a
group, but because several of the people suggesting this also didn't
want the alias at all, I figure I should ask and we can discuss it.

So, for the FAQ, which currently uses the second-entry-per-paragraph
logic, should it be changed to the logic suggested above where every
mention but the first is "Postgres"? (This will of course affect the
documentation changes when we are ready to discuss those.)

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

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

bruce@momjian.us (Bruce Momjian) writes:

Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Let's not get sidetracked here. ?There was already agreement in
advocacy to promote the use of the alias, and this thread is to
discuss that, not to revisit whether we should use an alias or not.

Advocacy opinions have no bearing on proper documentation writing. Nor
do I believe that there was an actual agreement.

I disagree.

You are welcome to do so, but you are in the wrong ... there was agreement
on changing the FAQ, there was strong disagreement on changing the official
docs ...

Is there a reason why this is such a high priority on your agenda?

--
----
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