Postgres idea list

On Tue, 2002-06-25 at 21:31, Neil Conway wrote:

On Tue, Jun 25, 2002 at 07:03:39PM -0000, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:

3. Combine pg_hba.conf, pg_ident.conf, and postgresql.conf into a single
file, postgres.conf.

I don't see why this would be a win.

What would be a win is an SQL like interface to editing pg_hba.conf and
postgresql.conf. Once that was done PG_Admin could write a lovely
interface to manage them without requiring direct access to the files.

Folks,

Since you asked, here are some ideas and thoughts I've been batting
around:

1. Start an advocacy mailing list, to help coordinate publicity, responses
to mySQL FUD, ways to advertise, etc.

etc ....

I hereby nominate Greg as PostgreSQL.org Marketing Director.

--
-Josh Berkus

"Greg Sabino Mullane" <greg@turnstep.com> writes:

Since you asked, here are some ideas and thoughts I've been batting
around:

Some of these strike me as good ideas, some not, but for the moment I
don't want to get dragged into debating them individually. The thought
that kept coming to me as I read your list is: who exactly is going to
*do* all this stuff? I sure don't want to. Reflecting on it leads me
to realize that our existing project leadership (core committee and
other key people) is mostly technically-focused people. We have been
doing a good job of providing technical leadership, and a pretty
good job of providing project infrastructure, but anything to do with
marketing, promotion, or advocacy has been given the cold shoulder,
I think.

We need a few volunteers with the time and inclination to do that kind
of work.

It also occurs to me that discussing this on -hackers, which is a
technically focused list, is itself somewhat wrongheaded. The best
list we have for it at the moment is -general, but I wonder whether we
shouldn't create a list centered around project promotion and outreach
concerns.

regards, tom lane

On Tue, Jun 25, 2002 at 07:03:39PM -0000, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:

3. Combine pg_hba.conf, pg_ident.conf, and postgresql.conf into a single
file, postgres.conf.

I don't see why this would be a win.

Have a command-line tool to make changes.

You mean like vi(1) ? :-)

Have a way to test out the changes, similar to "apachectl configtest"

Not sure about this -- I can see the importance of testing out
configuration changes, but AFAICS "pg_ctl configtest" would be
little more than a glorified syntax check. I think we need to rely on
DBA's to ensure that the configuration changes they make are valid.

4. Fix the documentation. The interactive documentation on the website
is particularly bad: try a search on "sequence", for example. The result
is 65 matches, and each one a filename.

I've heard this from others as well.

5. The website needs lots of improvement, on layout, navigation, and
content. mySQL actually has this one right.

Agreed.

Release more often, even if more minor:

Why? I think the PostgreSQL release engineering process is good.

stick to beta deadlines strictly.

Why? I'd much prefer that we release code when we are (relatively)
sure it is ready for production use, rather than shoving experimental
code out the door to meet an artificial and probably unrealistic
release target.

Cheers,

Neil

--
Neil Conway <neilconway@rogers.com>
PGP Key ID: DB3C29FC

Folks,

What would be a win is an SQL like interface to editing pg_hba.conf and
postgresql.conf. Once that was done PG_Admin could write a lovely
interface to manage them without requiring direct access to the files.

I am going to keep arguing against PG_Admin as the primary solution to any of
our administration UI challenges. It's WINDOWS ONLY, darn it!

--
-Josh Berkus

On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:

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Do people want an advocacy article written, like "How to choose a
database?" I could do that.

That would be good, as would an updated "postgres vs mysql" article
to point people towards. Or a "postgres myths debunked" page.

Basically, I am open to ideas. Would it help to fly me out to meet IT
leaders? More books/articles? What does it take? What do successful
companies and open source projects do that works?

Since you asked, here are some ideas and thoughts I've been batting
around:

1. Start an advocacy mailing list, to help coordinate publicity, responses
to mySQL FUD, ways to advertise, etc.

pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org has been around for >1year now ...

4. Fix the documentation. The interactive documentation on the website
is particularly bad: try a search on "sequence", for example. The result
is 65 matches, and each one a filename.

are you volunteering your time for this?

5. The website needs lots of improvement, on layout, navigation, and
content. mySQL actually has this one right.

already being worked on by a group of programmers and web designers ...

6. Moderate the lists better. There is a lot of traffic in general that
should be going to other lists. Keep all the high-volume, nitty-gritty
stuff on hackers, away from everyday users looking for help.

again, are you volunteering your time for this?

On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Tom Lane wrote:

"Greg Sabino Mullane" <greg@turnstep.com> writes:

Since you asked, here are some ideas and thoughts I've been batting
around:

Some of these strike me as good ideas, some not, but for the moment I
don't want to get dragged into debating them individually. The thought
that kept coming to me as I read your list is: who exactly is going to
*do* all this stuff? I sure don't want to. Reflecting on it leads me
to realize that our existing project leadership (core committee and
other key people) is mostly technically-focused people. We have been
doing a good job of providing technical leadership, and a pretty
good job of providing project infrastructure, but anything to do with
marketing, promotion, or advocacy has been given the cold shoulder,
I think.

We need a few volunteers with the time and inclination to do that kind
of work.

It also occurs to me that discussing this on -hackers, which is a
technically focused list, is itself somewhat wrongheaded. The best
list we have for it at the moment is -general, but I wonder whether we
shouldn't create a list centered around project promotion and outreach
concerns.

You mean a list like ... oh, I don't know ...
pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org? :)

On Tue, 25 Jun 2002 21:56:43 -0300 (ADT)
"Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@hub.org> wrote:

On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:

1. Start an advocacy mailing list, to help coordinate publicity, responses
to mySQL FUD, ways to advertise, etc.

pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org has been around for >1year now ...

Not on archives.postgresql.org though, nor has it is listed in the
user-oriented mailing lists at

http://www.ca.postgresql.org/users-lounge/index.html

It's also not listed among the developer-oriented lists at

http://developer.postgresql.org/maillist.php

either (not to mention ftp.postgresql.org). While it may technically
exist, it is well hidden.

Cheers,

Neil

--
Neil Conway <neilconway@rogers.com>
PGP Key ID: DB3C29FC

On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Josh Berkus wrote:

Folks,

What would be a win is an SQL like interface to editing pg_hba.conf and
postgresql.conf. Once that was done PG_Admin could write a lovely
interface to manage them without requiring direct access to the files.

I am going to keep arguing against PG_Admin as the primary solution to any of
our administration UI challenges. It's WINDOWS ONLY, darn it!

Agreed about specifically focusing on PGAdmin, *but*, there are other
interfaces that could really make use of such a feature ... PHPPgAdmin
being one ...

... but, the first argument against this is what happens if/when someone
puts in an entry in a 'pg_hba' table that blocks everyone from having
access? Or similar changes ...

If I recall correctly, the main argument against moving pg_hba (as an
example) is that you would have to move the 'access restrictions' inside
the backend (postgres) itself, instead of the front end (postmaster),
creating a high probably of a DDoS attack being quite effective ...

Well hidden, but so far 86 have found it and subscribed to it *grin*

But, you are right, should be advertised better ... I have some updates to
do to archives over the next day or two, in order to add in -patches also
...

As for your comments about 'filtering -general', there is nothing stopping
anyone from doing what I'm doing with this ... CC'ng -advocacy and
setting a Reply-To (wonder if that holds through majordomo?) over to
-advocacy where this sort of stuff belongs ... :)

Vince, we can get -advocacy listed on the web site? There has been no
traffic over there until now, but there are ppl subscribed to it ...

On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Neil Conway wrote:

"Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@hub.org> writes:

On Tue, 25 Jun 2002, Tom Lane wrote:

It also occurs to me that discussing this on -hackers, which is a
technically focused list, is itself somewhat wrongheaded. The best
list we have for it at the moment is -general, but I wonder whether we
shouldn't create a list centered around project promotion and outreach
concerns.

You mean a list like ... oh, I don't know ...
pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org? :)

You know, I seemed to remember that we had such a list, but I looked at
http://archives.postgresql.org/
and saw no archive for it, so I figured we didn't.

If you're about to go out and create it, may I suggest that the name
-advocacy might not be the best thing? -advocacy lists seem (to me
anyway) to be more often flamebait arenas than useful discussion areas.
Perhaps pgsql-promotion would be a good name that'd avoid the aura of
flamewars. Or maybe that's just my own perception not anyone else's.

regards, tom lane

-----Original Message-----
From: Josh Berkus [mailto:josh@agliodbs.com]
Sent: 26 June 2002 01:51
To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Cc: Rod Taylor
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Postgres idea list

Folks,

What would be a win is an SQL like interface to editing pg_hba.conf
and postgresql.conf. Once that was done PG_Admin could

write a lovely

interface to manage them without requiring direct access to

the files.

I am going to keep arguing against PG_Admin as the primary
solution to any of
our administration UI challenges. It's WINDOWS ONLY, darn it!

Just for info, *absolute* number 1 priority for the next major release
of pgAdmin is to take the 5+ years of experience and rewrite the code in
a more platform independent language.

Regards, Dave.

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Sabino Mullane [mailto:greg@turnstep.com]
Sent: 25 June 2002 20:04
To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: [HACKERS] Postgres idea list

12. Offer something "fun": a naming contest for the elephant (I know,
I know),

Isn't the elephant called Slonik? I vaguely remember picking that up
from an existing alt tag when I redesigned the odbc site...

Regards, Dave.

Hi Tom,

Tom Lane wrote:

"Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@hub.org> writes:

<snip>

You mean a list like ... oh, I don't know ...
pgsql-advocacy@postgresql.org? :)

You know, I seemed to remember that we had such a list, but I looked at
http://archives.postgresql.org/
and saw no archive for it, so I figured we didn't.

If you're about to go out and create it, may I suggest that the name
-advocacy might not be the best thing? -advocacy lists seem (to me
anyway) to be more often flamebait arenas than useful discussion areas.
Perhaps pgsql-promotion would be a good name that'd avoid the aura of
flamewars. Or maybe that's just my own perception not anyone else's.

There is already a pgsql-advocacy list (as was pointed out recently),
but it's unused.

Borrow a leaf from the OpenOffice.org project, how about a
pgsql-marketing list?

:-)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

Dave,

Would you consider java as a platform independant language? I have
started a project on sf.net called jpgadmin, but I see the duplication
of effort as a waste of time.

Dave

Daves,

Would you consider java as a platform independant language? I have
started a project on sf.net called jpgadmin, but I see the duplication
of effort as a waste of time.

Java has its drawbacks, but a JPgAdmin tool would significantly encourage
Postgres-OpenOffice.org integration.

--
-Josh Berkus

Josh,

What do you see as the drawbacks with java, and how can they be
circumvented?

Dave

Dave,

What do you see as the drawbacks with java, and how can they be
circumvented?

1. Java is not Open Source. It's an open standard, but not OS.

2. I understand that there are some serious limitations to the current
Postgres JDBC drivers. I have not used them, so I'm reporting rumor, here.

3. There are compatiblity issues between the various JVMs. We'd have to pick
a particular JVM and stick with it, and get a lot of complaints from users on
other JVMs. I don't know how serious the issues are.

--
-Josh Berkus

______AGLIO DATABASE SOLUTIONS___________________________
Josh Berkus
Complete information technology josh@agliodbs.com
and data management solutions (415) 565-7293
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and non-profit organizations. San Francisco

Josh,

1) There is an open source implementation of java
2) The jdbc driver is much better than it was recently we have made lots
of improvements, and it won't affect jpgadmin anyway. I actually think
writing the admin tool in java will make the driver better.
3) Don't see this as a big issue we aren't writing something esoteric
here.

Dave