Re: should we set hint bits without dirtying the page?

Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> I then got to wondering whether we should even go a step further, and
> simply decree that a page with only hint bit updates is not dirty and
> won't be written, period.

This sort of thing has been discussed before.  It seems fairly clear to
me that any of these variations represents a performance tradeoff: some
cases will get better and some will get worse.  I think we are not going
to get far unless we can agree on a set of benchmark cases that we'll
use to decide whether the tradeoff is a win or not.  How can we arrive
at that?
        regards, tom lane