On Mon, Jan 27, 2020 at 11:01 AM Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 15, 2019 at 8:05 PM Maciek Sakrejda <m.sakrejda@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 15, 2019 at 5:49 AM Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Personally, I don't care very much about backward-compatibility, or
> > > about how hard it is for tools to parse. I want it to be possible, but
> > > if it takes a little extra effort, so be it.
> >
> > I think these are two separate issues. I agree on
> > backward-compatibility (especially if we can embed a server version in
> > structured EXPLAIN output to make it easier for tools to track format
> > differences), but not caring how hard it is for tools to parse? What's
> > the point of structured formats, then?
>
> To make the data easy to parse. :-)
>
> I mean, it's clear that, on the one hand, having a format like JSON
> that, as has recently been pointed out elsewhere, is parsable by a
> wide variety of tools, is advantageous. However, I don't think it
> really matters whether the somebody's got to look at a tag called
> Flump and match it up with the data in another tag called JIT-Flump,
> or whether there's a Flump group that has RegularStuff and JIT tags
> inside of it. There's just not much difference in the effort involved.
> Being able to parse the JSON or XML using generic code is enough of a
> win that the details shouldn't matter that much.
Having a structured EXPLAIN schema that's semantically consistent is
still valuable. At the end of the day, it's humans who are writing the
tools that consume that structured output. Given the sparse structured
EXPLAIN schema documentation, as someone who currently works on
EXPLAIN tooling, I'd prefer a trend toward consistency at the expense
of backward compatibility. (Of course, we should avoid gratuitous
changes.)
But I take back the version number suggestion after reading Tom's
response; that was naïve.
> I think if you were going to complain about the limitations of our
> current EXPLAIN output format, it'd make a lot more sense to focus on
> the way we output expressions.
That would be nice to have, but for what it's worth, my main complaint
would be about documentation (especially around structured formats).
The "Using EXPLAIN" section covers the basics, but understanding what
node types exist, and what fields show up for what nodes and what they
mean--that seems to be a big missing piece (I don't feel entitled to
this documentation; as a structured format consumer, I'm just pointing
out a deficiency). Contrast that with the great wire protocol
documentation. In some ways it's easier to work on native drivers than
on EXPLAIN tooling because the docs are thorough and well organized.