On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Medi Montaseri <montaseri@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, this type of presumptuous behavior to wipe out a production database
> based on a few checks is too risky...
>
> Behavior one:
> First out-of-box time, pg_ctl does not find any database files, it tells the
> user that "sorry I did not find any database to start....see initdb....
> Result: we have a semi-unhappy user/admin that says... what is initdb
>
> Behavior two:
> In order to enhance the out-of-box experience, we have wiped out a
> production environment, leading to many unhappy staff and customers....
>
> PG developers...I am not impressed at all...
In defense of the pg developers, the behaviour you describe was
removed long ago BECAUSE of the issues you mention.
The fact is that pg developers can't police every distro out there to
make sure they've removed such hinky behaviour from their startup
scripts. So, the persons to NOT be impressed with at all are the
folks who maintain your OS's postgresql packaging, not the pg
developers.
Course, you can always switch to MySQL, or Oracle, or MSSQL where
nothing like that ever happens. uh huh.