Re: On the usefulness of hint bits

> Reduction of contention for pg_clog  access, for one thing.  If you read
> the archives, you'll find that  pg_clog access contention has been shown
> to be one cause of "context swap  storms".  Having to go to clog for
> every single tuple access would make  that orders of magnitude worse.


Ok; is it the

"Wierd context-switching issue on Xeon"

thread? Or that has nothing to do with it? I tried  "context swap  storms
pg_clog" but I didn't get anything...

> More generally, we're not going to give  up hint bits even if there are
> identifiable workloads where they don't buy  much --- because there are
> many others where they  do.


Sure: I wasn't suggesting to give up them, just to make their usage
"user selectable" (and "on" by default)