Re: PostgreSQL Project list for 2003

On Thu, 2002-11-28 at 12:26, Justin Clift wrote:
>  - PostgreSQL Win32 installation package
>   (PostgreSQL binary for Win32 + integrated GUI)

This is a very good idea, IMHO, although I have some reservations about
the specifics.

>    * Reasonable default memory configuration

This strikes me as a *bad* idea. What's "reasonable"? Part of the reason
why shared_buffers configuration is non-trivial is that the "right"
values can be difficult for a DBA to figure out -- it seems a lot more
difficult to get a piece of software to do it automatically. And if we
can't make a guess that will be appropriate for most users, they'll need
to configure the software themselves anyway.

Also, gratioutisly changing the behavior or default settings of
PostgreSQL on different platforms just seems like a bad path to start
going down.

>    * Includes one of the good PostgreSQL cross-platform
>      GUI's.  PgAccess?

There's also PgAdmin II for Win32.

>    * No real end-user maintenance tasks for simple setups
>      Auto-vacuums, auto-reindexes, auto-?

IMHO, it would be sufficient to wait for the proper implementation of
this for mainstream PostgreSQL, and then include it in the package --
and then ask the user "Enable auto-vacuum?"

Not sure if anyone is working on auto-reindex, but my understanding is
that

>    * (maybe) By default, use XLOG files that are smaller
>      than 16MB to reduce the installed footprint size
>      for small setups.

Again, not a good idea, IMHO.

> With a small-footprint (and fully functional) auto-maintaining PG
> installation, integration with other products would be much more
> practical.  Would be interesting to see if the OpenOffice developers
> would find it suitable then, if nothing had already been included as
> their default database.

Well, PostgreSQL can't be all things to all people -- and one thing it
is not is an embedded database.

Cheers,

Neil
--
Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> || PGP Key ID: DB3C29FC