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From: Laurenz Albe <[email protected]>
To: Justin Pryzby <[email protected]>
To: Alvaro Herrera <[email protected]>
Cc: Erik Rijkers <[email protected]>
Cc: Corey Huinker <[email protected]>
Cc: Jürgen Purtz <[email protected]>
Cc: Roger Harkavy <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Cc: Fabien COELHO <[email protected]>
Cc: Michael Paquier <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Add A Glossary
Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2020 06:04:19 +0200
Message-ID: <[email protected]> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>

On Fri, 2020-04-03 at 16:01 -0500, Justin Pryzby wrote:
> BTW it's now visible at:
> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/glossary.html

Great!

Some comments:

- SQL object: There are more kinds of objects, like roles or full text dictionaries.
  Perhaps better:

    Anything that is created with a CREATE statement, for example ...
    Most objects belong to a database schema, except ...

  Or do we consider a replication slot to be an object?

- The glossary has "Primary (server)", but not "Standby (server)".
  That should be a synonym for "Replica".

- Server: is that really our definition?
  I thought that "server" is what the glossary defines as "instance", and
  the thing called "server" in the glossary should really be called "host".

  Maybe I am too Unix-centered.

  Many people I know use "instance" synonymous to "cluster".

- Role: I understand the motivation behind the definition (except that the word "instance"
  is ill chosen), but a role is more than a collection of privileges.
  How can a collection of privileges have a password or own an object?
  Perhaps, instead of the first sentence:

    A database object used for authentication, authorization and ownership.
    Both database users and user groups are "roles" in PostgreSQL.

  In the second sentence, "roles" is mis-spelled as "roless".

- Null

  I think it should say "It represents the absence of *a definite* value."
  Usually it is better to think of NULL as "unknown".

- Function

  I don't know if "transformation of data" describes it well.
  Quite a lot of functions in PostgreSQL have side effects.
  How about:

    Procedural code stored in the database that can be used in SQL statements.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

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