Re: initdb createuser commands

> A given the number of new users I see showing up and the number of those using a GUI like pgAdmin I am not seeing the
priority.

Well, maybe the reason for this is that the command line tools are not
well thought out and people reach for alternatives.

> but you are pushing against something that has significant inertia.

I understand where you are coming from. However, I don't think I'm
pushing against it. I'm just providing feedback and ideas. The ideas I
did provide don't really push, but are incremental improvements which
preserve backwards compatibility.

As a community I'd think that having feedback from a new user would be
valuable since as you say, sometimes when you get ingrained into the
"way of doing things" that you don't see how they could be improved or
different.

> I do not see anyone pre-approving a PR that they have not seen.

I'm not suggesting anyone to pre-approve anything. I'm suggesting that
there is no point investing the effort if there is no desire to fix
the problem. If the problem would be acknowledged by a core dev and a
"Let's improve this" attitude were espoused, I'd feel more confident
to invest the time and effort required to improve things.

But so far, I'm getting the opposite.

Kind regards,
Samuel



On 31 October 2016 at 04:30, Adrian Klaver <adrian.klaver@aklaver.com> wrote:
> On 10/30/2016 12:15 AM, Samuel Williams wrote:
>>
>> Adrian, I like the idea of teaching the appropriate SQL to achieve the
>> same thing. It makes a lot of sense, it's a pity the majority of
>> documentation doesn't do this.
>>
>> John, if you read my earlier email you'd see that I proposed including
>> deprecation notices and aliasing the commands. I appreciate the need
>> for existing documentation to continue being relevant.
>>
>> Melvin, I think you are blowing things out of proportion. I didn't
>> propose to rename the commands entirely such as "createuser" to
>> "prepareaccount". But, I think having "pg_createuser" or, preferrably,
>> "pg createuser". It's tidier, respectful of a limited global namespace
>> of command names, and potentially easier for everyone.
>>
>> Gavin, I appreciate this is a low priority. But I think it's also
>> really easy to do by someone who is experienced. Perhaps a day or two
>> of work? So, it's low priority but also not that difficult and it's an
>> opportunity to improve the command line experience in a very
>> fundamental way for new users and experienced users alike.
>>
>> In my mind, making Postgresql approachable by new users should be a
>> high priority.
>
>
> A given the number of new users I see showing up and the number of those
> using a GUI like pgAdmin I am not seeing the priority.
>
> What it comes down to is adapting to your environment. In my day job I work
> in a variety of different disciplines(plumbing, electrical, equipment
> control, landscaping and so on) and I run into this context shift all the
> time. In a perfect world everyone would agree on a common way of doing
> things. This is not a perfect world so I have to adapt when I move from one
> field to another and even within a field when dealing with different people.
> I used to fight this, and still do when provoked, but at some time point I
> realized I generally expended less energy just learning 'the  way' and
> getting on with my job. Not to say you do not have some valid points, but
> you are pushing against something that has significant inertia.
>
>>
>> This is really just my 2c, I'd be happy to submit a PR but can you
>> confirm intention to work on it to acceptance? Otherwise I'm just
>> wasting everyone's time including my own :)
>
>
> I do not see anyone pre-approving a PR that they have not seen.
>
>
>>
>> On 30 October 2016 at 13:31, Gavin Flower <GavinFlower@archidevsys.co.nz>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 30/10/16 11:25, John R Pierce wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 10/29/2016 3:02 PM, Samuel Williams wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> FYI,https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PostgreSQL mentions initdb,
>>>>> createuser, createdb and several others. I think my suggestion is
>>>>> still relevant and something that would improve the system for new
>>>>> users
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> and it would break it for the existing community that has up to 20 years
>>>> of experience with it, as well as breaking virtually all existing
>>>> documentation, books, howto articles, etc, including the one you linked.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I think it would be good to have all the postgresql utilities prefixed by
>>> pg_ to keep them together, but have aliases so existing scripts &
>>> documentation (especially 3rd party) were still relevant.
>>>
>>> However, I wouldn't consider it the highest priority.
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Gavin
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
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>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Adrian Klaver
> adrian.klaver@aklaver.com