Message-ID: <686e65ba48801791816771e993ff5eebe571fac9.camel@cybertec.at>
Subject: Re: Add A Glossary
From: Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>
To: Justin Pryzby <pryzby@telsasoft.com>, Alvaro Herrera
	 <alvherre@2ndquadrant.com>
Cc: Erik Rijkers <er@xs4all.nl>, Corey Huinker <corey.huinker@gmail.com>,
	=?ISO-8859-1?Q?J=FCrgen?= Purtz
	 <juergen@purtz.de>, Roger Harkavy <rogerharkavy@gmail.com>,
	pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, Fabien COELHO <coelho@cri.ensmp.fr>, Michael
	Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2020 06:04:19 +0200
In-Reply-To: <20200403210120.GA12283@telsasoft.com>
References: <7b9b469e804777ac9df4d37716db935e@xs4all.nl>
	 <20200403205143.GA7961@alvherre.pgsql>
	 <20200403210120.GA12283@telsasoft.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
User-Agent: Evolution 3.32.5 (3.32.5-1.fc30) 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Precedence: bulk

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