Greg Copeland <greg@CopelandConsulting.Net> writes:
> [ several useful comments snipped ]
> In fact, I'm happy this came up as I recently emailed a core developer
> asking for places to start as well as any preferred documentation to
> start with. Basically I was told read the code and go read the docs.
I believe you are complaining about me. In my defense I'll just say
that your question was basically "how does the optimizer work", which
covers rather a lot of territory. I didn't see any more useful answer
than the one I gave you, short of writing a book which I was not about
to do in private email.
As I said in that mail and will say again, I believe in carrying on that
sort of discussion in the pgsql-hackers list, where other developers and
wannabee developers have some chance of benefiting from it. Private mail
only teaches one person. As for IRC, personally I hate it: it discourages
taking the time for a considered answer, it does not work well for
people in vastly different timezones, and it leaves no archive trail
that others might learn from later. However, there are other developers
who think differently; I believe you can often find Bruce on IRC, for
example.
The PG community is big enough to support multiple interactions, and if
some folk want to use IRC I have no objection to it. But I feel that
the hub of the development activity is pgsql-hackers. There is nothing
wrong with asking questions there.
regards, tom lane