Re: Are we losing momentum?

On 16 Apr 2003, Hannu Krosing wrote:

> greg@turnstep.com kirjutas K, 16.04.2003 kell 16:51:
> > The original poster had some 
> > valid points (auto-vacuum and non-intuitive commands) that still need 
> > addressing, IMO.
> 
> As of 7.3 (or was it 7.2) auto-vacuum is just one line in crontab. In
> many scenarios it can be left running continuously with very little
> effect on performance. In others it must be run nightly, but having it
> kick in at unexpected times may not be what you want at all. So it has
> to be configured for good performance weather it is built-in or run in a
> separate backend process.
> 
> And I can't see how "show tables" is more intuitive than "\dt" - I
> expected it to be "list tables" or "tablelist" or "näita tabeleid" .

'show tables' is SQL, and can be run from a script, with the output 
parsed.  For some reason when I run a query of \dt from PHP I get an 
error. :-)

> Once you have found \? it is all there (and you are advised to use \? at
> psql startup).

I love \ commands, but remember, those are psql commands, not postgresql 
commands.  show tables would be a postgreSQL command the backend parser 
would understand.  Apples and Oranges.

> That may also be why PostgreSQL is more popular in Japan - if one has to
> remember nonsensical strings, then it is easier to remember short ones

But, how do I write an app to ask such questions easily?  psql -E is not 
the easiest and most intuitive way to learn how to get the data into a 
structure for parsing in a client side app.