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  1. Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Greg Sabino Mullane <htamfids@gmail.com> — 2024-08-30T16:01:42Z

    I normally wouldn't mention my blog entries here, but this one was about
the hackers mailing list, so wanted to let people know about it in case you
don't follow Planet Postgres. I scanned the last year's worth of posts and
gathered the most used acronyms and jargon. The most commonly used acronym
was IMO (in my opinion), followed by FWIW (for what it's worth), and IIUC
(if I understand correctly). The complete list can be found in the post
below, I'll refrain from copying everything here.

https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/understanding-the-postgres-hackers-mailing-list

Cheers,
Greg

  2. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker <ilmari@ilmari.org> — 2024-09-02T11:06:18Z

    Greg Sabino Mullane <htamfids@gmail.com> writes:

> I normally wouldn't mention my blog entries here, but this one was about
> the hackers mailing list, so wanted to let people know about it in case you
> don't follow Planet Postgres. I scanned the last year's worth of posts and
> gathered the most used acronyms and jargon. The most commonly used acronym
> was IMO (in my opinion), followed by FWIW (for what it's worth), and IIUC
> (if I understand correctly). The complete list can be found in the post
> below, I'll refrain from copying everything here.
>
> https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/understanding-the-postgres-hackers-mailing-list

Nice write-up! Might it also be worth linking to the acronyms and
glossary sections of the docs?

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/acronyms.html
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/glossary.html

> Cheers,
> Greg

- ilmari

  3. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> — 2024-09-02T11:38:06Z

    > On 2 Sep 2024, at 13:06, Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker <ilmari@ilmari.org> wrote:
> 
> Greg Sabino Mullane <htamfids@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> I normally wouldn't mention my blog entries here, but this one was about
>> the hackers mailing list, so wanted to let people know about it in case you
>> don't follow Planet Postgres. I scanned the last year's worth of posts and
>> gathered the most used acronyms and jargon. The most commonly used acronym
>> was IMO (in my opinion), followed by FWIW (for what it's worth), and IIUC
>> (if I understand correctly). The complete list can be found in the post
>> below, I'll refrain from copying everything here.
>> 
>> https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/understanding-the-postgres-hackers-mailing-list
> 
> Nice write-up!

+1

> Might it also be worth linking to the acronyms and
> glossary sections of the docs?

Or maybe on the site under https://www.postgresql.org/list/ in some way?

--
Daniel Gustafsson

  4. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com> — 2024-09-03T15:50:20Z

    On Fri, Aug 30, 2024 at 12:01:42PM -0400, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
> I normally wouldn't mention my blog entries here, but this one was about
> the hackers mailing list, so wanted to let people know about it in case you
> don't follow Planet Postgres. I scanned the last year's worth of posts and
> gathered the most used acronyms and jargon. The most commonly used acronym
> was IMO (in my opinion), followed by FWIW (for what it's worth), and IIUC
> (if I understand correctly). The complete list can be found in the post
> below, I'll refrain from copying everything here.

Do you think these acronyms make it difficult for some to contribute to
Postgres?  I've always felt that they were pretty easy to figure out and a
nice way to save some typing for common phrases, but I'm not sure it's ever
really been discussed.

-- 
nathan

  5. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org> — 2024-09-05T12:14:48Z

    On 2024-Aug-30, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:

> I normally wouldn't mention my blog entries here, but this one was about
> the hackers mailing list, so wanted to let people know about it in case you
> don't follow Planet Postgres. I scanned the last year's worth of posts and
> gathered the most used acronyms and jargon. The most commonly used acronym
> was IMO (in my opinion), followed by FWIW (for what it's worth), and IIUC
> (if I understand correctly). The complete list can be found in the post
> below, I'll refrain from copying everything here.
> 
> https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/understanding-the-postgres-hackers-mailing-list

Good post, thanks for taking the time.

This seems a great resource to link in the
https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/So,_you_want_to_be_a_developer%3F
page or maybe in
https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Developer_FAQ
or both ... and also this one
http://rhaas.blogspot.com/2024/08/posting-your-patch-on-pgsql-hackers.html

-- 
Álvaro Herrera        Breisgau, Deutschland  —  https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/
"Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein."
       Nadie está tan esclavizado como el que se cree libre no siéndolo
                                           (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

  6. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com> — 2024-09-09T00:23:51Z

    On Sat, 31 Aug 2024 at 04:02, Greg Sabino Mullane <htamfids@gmail.com> wrote:
> I normally wouldn't mention my blog entries here, but this one was about the hackers mailing list, so wanted to let people know about it in case you don't follow Planet Postgres. I scanned the last year's worth of posts and gathered the most used acronyms and jargon. The most commonly used acronym was IMO (in my opinion), followed by FWIW (for what it's worth), and IIUC (if I understand correctly). The complete list can be found in the post below, I'll refrain from copying everything here.
>
> https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/understanding-the-postgres-hackers-mailing-list

I think this is useful. Thanks for posting.

I think HEAD is commonly misused to mean master instead of the latest
commit of the current branch. I see the buildfarm even does that.
Thanks for getting that right in your blog post.

David

  7. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Tatsuo Ishii <ishii@postgresql.org> — 2024-09-09T00:32:28Z

    > I normally wouldn't mention my blog entries here, but this one was about
> the hackers mailing list, so wanted to let people know about it in case you
> don't follow Planet Postgres. I scanned the last year's worth of posts and
> gathered the most used acronyms and jargon. The most commonly used acronym
> was IMO (in my opinion), followed by FWIW (for what it's worth), and IIUC
> (if I understand correctly). The complete list can be found in the post
> below, I'll refrain from copying everything here.
> 
> https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/understanding-the-postgres-hackers-mailing-list

Thank you for the excellent article. I think it is very useful for
non-native English speakers like me.

Best reagards,
--
Tatsuo Ishii
SRA OSS K.K.
English: http://www.sraoss.co.jp/index_en/
Japanese:http://www.sraoss.co.jp

  8. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> — 2024-09-09T03:35:36Z

    David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com> writes:
> I think HEAD is commonly misused to mean master instead of the latest
> commit of the current branch. I see the buildfarm even does that.
> Thanks for getting that right in your blog post.

IIRC, HEAD *was* the technically correct term back when we were
using CVS.  Old habits die hard.

			regards, tom lane

  9. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz> — 2024-09-09T03:42:00Z

    On Sun, Sep 08, 2024 at 11:35:36PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com> writes:
>> I think HEAD is commonly misused to mean master instead of the latest
>> commit of the current branch. I see the buildfarm even does that.
>> Thanks for getting that right in your blog post.
> 
> IIRC, HEAD *was* the technically correct term back when we were
> using CVS.  Old habits die hard.

Even if it's a new habit from a new technology.  I began getting
involved with upstream the year when the moved from CVS to git
happened, and just inherited this habit from everybody else ;)
--
Michael

  10. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> — 2024-09-09T17:02:51Z

    On 2024-09-08 Su 11:35 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com> writes:
>> I think HEAD is commonly misused to mean master instead of the latest
>> commit of the current branch. I see the buildfarm even does that.
>> Thanks for getting that right in your blog post.
> IIRC, HEAD *was* the technically correct term back when we were
> using CVS.  Old habits die hard.
>
> 	


Yeah. The reason we kept doing it that way in the buildfarm was that for 
a period we actually had some animals using CVS and some using that 
new-fangled git thing.

I guess I could try to write code to migrate everything, but it would be 
somewhat fragile. And what would we do if we ever decided to migrate 
"master" to another name like "main"? I do at least have code ready for 
that eventuality, but it would (currently) still keep the visible name 
of HEAD.


cheers


andrew


--
Andrew Dunstan
EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com

  11. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> — 2024-09-09T17:19:32Z

    On Mon, Sep 9, 2024 at 1:03 PM Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote:
> I guess I could try to write code to migrate everything, but it would be
> somewhat fragile. And what would we do if we ever decided to migrate
> "master" to another name like "main"? I do at least have code ready for
> that eventuality, but it would (currently) still keep the visible name
> of HEAD.

Personally, I think using HEAD to mean master is really confusing. In
git, master is a branch name, and HEAD is the tip of some branch, or
the random commit you've checked out that isn't even a branch. I know
that's not how it worked in CVS, but CVS was a very long time ago.

If we rename master to main or devel or something, we'll have to
adjust the way we speak again, but that's not a reason to keep using
the wrong terminology for the way things are now.

-- 
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com

  12. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> — 2024-09-09T19:54:52Z

    On 2024-09-09 Mo 1:19 PM, Robert Haas wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 9, 2024 at 1:03 PM Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote:
>> I guess I could try to write code to migrate everything, but it would be
>> somewhat fragile. And what would we do if we ever decided to migrate
>> "master" to another name like "main"? I do at least have code ready for
>> that eventuality, but it would (currently) still keep the visible name
>> of HEAD.
> Personally, I think using HEAD to mean master is really confusing. In
> git, master is a branch name, and HEAD is the tip of some branch, or
> the random commit you've checked out that isn't even a branch. I know
> that's not how it worked in CVS, but CVS was a very long time ago.
>
> If we rename master to main or devel or something, we'll have to
> adjust the way we speak again, but that's not a reason to keep using
> the wrong terminology for the way things are now.


There are some serious obstacles to changing it all over, though. I 
don't want to rewrite all the history, for example.

What we could do relatively simply is change what is seen publicly. e.g. 
we could rewrite the status page to read "Branch: master". We could also 
change URLs we generate to use master instead of HEAD (and change it 
back when processing the URLs. And so on.

Changing things on the client side would be far more complicated and 
difficult.


cheers


andrew


--
Andrew Dunstan
EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com

  13. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> — 2024-09-10T09:31:45Z

    On Mon, Sep 9, 2024 at 7:20 PM Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 9, 2024 at 1:03 PM Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote:
> > I guess I could try to write code to migrate everything, but it would be
> > somewhat fragile. And what would we do if we ever decided to migrate
> > "master" to another name like "main"? I do at least have code ready for
> > that eventuality, but it would (currently) still keep the visible name
> > of HEAD.
>
> Personally, I think using HEAD to mean master is really confusing. In
> git, master is a branch name, and HEAD is the tip of some branch, or
> the random commit you've checked out that isn't even a branch. I know
> that's not how it worked in CVS, but CVS was a very long time ago.
>

Yeah, and it gets extra confusing when some of the error messages in git
explicitly talk about HEAD and that HEAD is something completely different
from our terminology.


If we rename master to main or devel or something, we'll have to
> adjust the way we speak again, but that's not a reason to keep using
> the wrong terminology for the way things are now.
>

Agreed in general. But also if we are going to end up making technical
changes to handle it, then if we're ever going to make the change master ->
main (or whatever), it would save work and pain to do the two at the same
time.

-- 
 Magnus Hagander
 Me: https://www.hagander.net/ <http://www.hagander.net/>
 Work: https://www.redpill-linpro.com/ <http://www.redpill-linpro.com/>

  14. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Greg Sabino Mullane <htamfids@gmail.com> — 2024-09-10T14:41:18Z

    On Tue, Sep 3, 2024 at 11:50 AM Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Do you think these acronyms make it difficult for some to contribute to
> Postgres?  I've always felt that they were pretty easy to figure out and a
> nice way to save some typing for common phrases, but I'm not sure it's ever
> really been discussed
>

I do think it raises the bar a bit, especially for non-native-English
speakers. Granted, the learning curve is not super high, and context plus
web searching can usually help people out, but the lists are dense enough
already, so I wanted to help people out. Also, mailing lists in general are
a pretty foreign concept to young developers, and as AFAICT [1], not all
the acronyms have crossed to the texting world.

Cheers,
Greg

[1] See what I did there? [2]

[2] Do people still learn about and use footnotes?

  15. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> — 2024-09-10T20:51:28Z

    On 2024-09-09 Mo 3:54 PM, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
>
> On 2024-09-09 Mo 1:19 PM, Robert Haas wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 9, 2024 at 1:03 PM Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> 
>> wrote:
>>> I guess I could try to write code to migrate everything, but it 
>>> would be
>>> somewhat fragile. And what would we do if we ever decided to migrate
>>> "master" to another name like "main"? I do at least have code ready for
>>> that eventuality, but it would (currently) still keep the visible name
>>> of HEAD.
>> Personally, I think using HEAD to mean master is really confusing. In
>> git, master is a branch name, and HEAD is the tip of some branch, or
>> the random commit you've checked out that isn't even a branch. I know
>> that's not how it worked in CVS, but CVS was a very long time ago.
>>
>> If we rename master to main or devel or something, we'll have to
>> adjust the way we speak again, but that's not a reason to keep using
>> the wrong terminology for the way things are now.
>
>
> There are some serious obstacles to changing it all over, though. I 
> don't want to rewrite all the history, for example.
>
> What we could do relatively simply is change what is seen publicly. 
> e.g. we could rewrite the status page to read "Branch: master". We 
> could also change URLs we generate to use master instead of HEAD (and 
> change it back when processing the URLs. And so on.


I've done this. Nothing in the client or the database has changed, but 
the fact that we refer to "master" as "HEAD" is pretty much hidden now 
from the web app and the emails it sends out. That should help lessen 
any confusion in casual viewers.

Comments welcome. I don't think I have missed anything but it's always 
possible.


cheers


andrew

--
Andrew Dunstan
EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com

  16. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> — 2024-09-11T12:34:56Z

    On Mon, Sep 9, 2024 at 3:54 PM Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote:
> There are some serious obstacles to changing it all over, though. I
> don't want to rewrite all the history, for example.

Because of the way git works, that really wouldn't be an issue. We'd
just push the tip of the master branch to main and then start
committing to main and delete master. The history wouldn't change at
all, because in git, a branch is really just a movable pointer to a
commit. The commits themselves don't know that they're part of a
branch.

A lot of things would break, naturally. We'd still all have master
branches in our local repositories and somebody might accidentally try
to push one of those branches back to the upstream repository and the
buildfarm and lots of other tooling would get confused and it would
all be a mess for a while, but the history itself would not change.

-- 
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com

  17. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> — 2024-09-11T15:04:55Z

    On 2024-09-11 We 8:34 AM, Robert Haas wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 9, 2024 at 3:54 PM Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote:
>> There are some serious obstacles to changing it all over, though. I
>> don't want to rewrite all the history, for example.
> Because of the way git works, that really wouldn't be an issue. We'd
> just push the tip of the master branch to main and then start
> committing to main and delete master. The history wouldn't change at
> all, because in git, a branch is really just a movable pointer to a
> commit. The commits themselves don't know that they're part of a
> branch.
>
> A lot of things would break, naturally. We'd still all have master
> branches in our local repositories and somebody might accidentally try
> to push one of those branches back to the upstream repository and the
> buildfarm and lots of other tooling would get confused and it would
> all be a mess for a while, but the history itself would not change.



I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't referring to the git history, but 
the buildfarm history.

Anyway, I think what I have done should suffice. You should no longer 
see the name HEAD on the buildfarm server, although it will continue to 
exists in the database.

Incidentally, I wrote a blog post about changing the client default name 
some years ago: 
<http://adpgtech.blogspot.com/2021/06/buildfarm-adopts-modern-git-naming.html>

I also have scripting to do the git server changes (basically to set its 
default branch), although it's rather github-specific.


cheers


andrew

--
Andrew Dunstan
EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com

  18. Re: Jargon and acronyms on this mailing list

    Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> — 2024-10-14T23:41:35Z

    On Thu, Sep  5, 2024 at 02:14:48PM +0200, Álvaro Herrera wrote:
> On 2024-Aug-30, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
> 
> > I normally wouldn't mention my blog entries here, but this one was about
> > the hackers mailing list, so wanted to let people know about it in case you
> > don't follow Planet Postgres. I scanned the last year's worth of posts and
> > gathered the most used acronyms and jargon. The most commonly used acronym
> > was IMO (in my opinion), followed by FWIW (for what it's worth), and IIUC
> > (if I understand correctly). The complete list can be found in the post
> > below, I'll refrain from copying everything here.
> > 
> > https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/understanding-the-postgres-hackers-mailing-list
> 
> Good post, thanks for taking the time.
> 
> This seems a great resource to link in the
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/So,_you_want_to_be_a_developer%3F
> page or maybe in
> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Developer_FAQ
> or both ... and also this one
> http://rhaas.blogspot.com/2024/08/posting-your-patch-on-pgsql-hackers.html

Good idea, URL added to both.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  When a patient asks the doctor, "Am I going to die?", he means 
  "Am I going to die soon?"