Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2019 22:20:14 +0200
From: David Fetter <david@fetter.org>
To: pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Is it wise to include table inheritence in the tutorial?
Message-ID: <20190805202014.GS31493@fetter.org>
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On Mon, Aug 05, 2019 at 10:17:40AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> PG Doc comments form <noreply@postgresql.org> writes:
> > I was reading the tutorial here:
> > https://www.postgresql.org/docs/11/tutorial-inheritance.html But
> > on the "don't do this" Wiki, it is strongly advised not to use
> > this:
> > https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Don't_Do_This#Don.27t_use_table_inheritance
> 
> That wiki entry is just some random person's opinion, it's not
> project policy.

It may not be project policy, but I have yet[1] to run into a use of it
that wouldn't be done better some other way.

> Having said that, the partitioning feature is approaching the point
> of being mature enough to recommend to novices, so maybe we should
> start thinking about adjusting the tutorial with that in mind.  I
> wouldn't necessarily remove the inheritance section; it's talking
> about OOP-style inheritance, which you can't get with partitioning.

Table inheritance was part of the ORDBMS experiment, which in turn was
marcom in the context of a time when OO was the new hotness, as were
New Wave, the Oprah Winfrey Show, and smoking bans on airplanes.

That experiment produced a decisive result, namely "don't."

Our tutorial should be rewritten in its entirety with emphasis on
cut'n'paste-ability, the examples being checked via 'make check' or
close friends.

Best,
David.

[1] Modulo misusing exactly one feature of it, combined with a large
engineering effort, to simulate table partitioning
-- 
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778

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