Re: [HACKERS] [PATCH] Rename pg_switch_xlog to pg_switch_wal

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 2:37 PM, Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> wrote:
> On 2017-01-26 14:28:01 -0500, Robert Haas wrote:
>> On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 2:24 PM, Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> wrote:
>> >> Whether the voters recognized that fact at the time I would have to concur
>> >> that if we are going to change from xlog to wal we should be all-in.  If
>> >> you want to vote to reject putting the whole camel in the tent I would say
>> >> its a vote for reverting the change that put the camel's nose in there in
>> >> the first place.
>> >
>> > WTF.
>>
>> I think that response is unwarranted.  I happen to agree entirely with
>> his position.
>
> I don't. Considering intent imo is important. David (and you?) is
> basically saying "screw it, you voted for that person, you aren't
> allowed to have an opinion anymore", and that's way outside of what I
> consider acceptable.  So, because you think it doesn't make sense to
> view renaming pg_xlog vs pg_wal as separate from a global s/xlog/wal/,
> nobody else can have that position.  And on top of that David's
> underlying that argument with a metaphor that basically implies the
> other party is getting screwed over.  Sorry, that's not the way I want
> decisions to be made here.

I'm not saying that people aren't allowed to have an opinion any more.
I'm saying that when somebody has an opinion that is different than
yours, you should politely disagree with it rather than saying "WTF",
which just as a reminder expands to "What The Fuck".  Frankly, I think
WTF is generally not a particularly useful contribution to most
discussions, but at the very least I think it should be used with some
kind of context.  Sending an email that says "WTF" and nothing else
conveys nothing other than that you don't respect the author of the
email to which you are replying, and David's response was not so
outlandish as to deserve that.  You might as well send an email that
says "go dire in a fire".

The substantive issue here is whether we should go forward with this
change, back out the change we already did, or leave things as they
are.  Tom, David, and I seem to be in lock step on at least the
following conclusion: halfway in between is bad.  So I have every
intention of continuing to push very hard for us to go either forward
or backward.  I hope to do that politely and respectfully, but I am
not prepared to give up on that basic point unless there are a WHOLE
LOT of contrary votes, and that is just not where we are at present.
While a variety of opinions have been expressed on the patch
originally posted and while many of those people took subtly different
positions which I'm unable to summarize concisely, there was ZERO
pushback against my email volunteering to go make all of this
consistent and pushing for it to be made consistent until you showed
up to complain.  Now there is one person objecting and several people
in favor, and I think it is pretty fair to say that many of the people
who were arguing for Vladimir's original patch are still in favor of
proceeding.  Even Peter, who wasn't super-excited about Vladimir's
patch in isolation, conceded that the xlog terminology sucked and
asked for a complete patch set.  I don't think he's unequivocally in
favor of this, but he seemed to be willing to sit still for it.  After
waiting two days for further opinions, I went and wrote the patches as
promised.

And I think that's all pretty reasonable.  I don't consider this a
done deal yet.  I don't consider your -1 irrelevant.  But I don't
think it's fair to present this as if I am somehow running roughshod
over community process, either.  If a large crew of people show up to
insist that we should rename only the directories and nothing else, I
guess I'll have to live with that.  But I think that's a bad decision
that will never survive the passage of time, and there seem to be
several people who agree with me.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company