Re: Autovacuum Improvements

Matthew T. O'Connor <matthew@zeut.net>

From: Matthew O'Connor <matthew@zeut.net>
To: Glen Parker <glenebob@nwlink.com>, Postgres General <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Date: 2006-12-20T01:52:33Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> Glen Parker wrote:
>> That really seems like something that, if it's powerful, would also be 
>> very complicated.  If the autovacuum system could just call a user 
>> defined function, all the complexity could be dropped back into the 
>> admin's lap (which is fine with me :-).
> 
> I have a quote by Larry Wall about something similar:
> 
> "In fact, the basic problem with Perl 5's subroutines is that they're
> not crufty enough, so the cruft leaks out into user-defined code
> instead, by the Conservation of Cruft Principle." 
> 		(Larry Wall, Apocalypse 6)
> 
> With the system described above, you can have it very simple by just not
> configuring anything.  Or you can have a very complex scenario involving
> holidays and weekends and off-hours and "the two hours of the month when
> you do all the nasty stuff" by doing a very elaborate and complicated
> setup.  Or you could have a middle ground just defining "off hours"
> (weekends and nights) which would be just a couple of commands.


I would go one step further and suggest that when the maintenance window 
system gets completed we give it a default setup of midnight to 6AM or 
something like that.