From: Jonathan S. Katz <jkatz@postgresql.org>
To: Chris Travers <chris.travers@gmail.com>
To: Erikjan Rijkers <er@xs4all.nl>
Cc: Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com>
Cc: Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net>
Cc: Selena Deckelmann <selena@maxipad.org>
Cc: Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net>
Cc: Dave Cramer <davecramer@gmail.com>
Cc: Renee <renee.phillips@gmail.com>
Cc: Pg Docs <pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: I'm surprised to see the word master here
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2019 09:10:40 -0400
Message-ID: <d94aceeb-6bd9-6668-7cf1-157028a5d254@postgresql.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAKt_Zfspa=iiFr40fNPE2KYQ5LO588tQCgueS1sExR=k8VB6Cg@mail.gmail.com>
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<0268aaf1-02e2-9d29-a751-ec42c21a889f@2ndquadrant.com>
<36E41634-B602-4D7C-8ACE-7EA03D2DF6E5@gmail.com>
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<86ee53bd-e016-86c8-3c20-41702c48a12f@2ndquadrant.com>
<20191002060653.GC6962@tamriel.snowman.net>
<CAN1EF+xW6OT=3gWm-40qCC+0KnJ6ag7LcNdYYqKeMjsKfPDioQ@mail.gmail.com>
<CABUevEwGmTzk10YDRz6qQiFk_yCZbtje93FXXe90z7iZ_A8CMA@mail.gmail.com>
<611b57f4-be10-5e12-26ea-a2b1940d70bd@2ndquadrant.com>
<e9a72cde5e0078307998597ce12b3ddf@xs4all.nl>
<CAKt_Zfspa=iiFr40fNPE2KYQ5LO588tQCgueS1sExR=k8VB6Cg@mail.gmail.com>
On 10/2/19 7:39 AM, Chris Travers wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 12:57 PM Erikjan Rijkers <er@xs4all.nl
> <mailto:er@xs4all.nl>> wrote:
>
> On 2019-10-02 12:46, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> > On 2019-10-02 10:21, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> >> Exactly. Both might be accurate, but one comes with a lot less
> >> baggage.
> >>
> >> I support a search and replace.
> >>
> >> I think it'll take a bit more than just a simple "sed script to
> >> replace", if that's what you mean. But probably not all that much --
> >> but
> >> there can certainly be cases where nearby langaugae also has to be
> >> changed to make it work properly. But I have a hard time seeing it as
> >> being a *huge* undertaking.
> >
> > I find this proposal to be dubious and unsubstantiated. Do we need to
> > get rid of "multimaster", "postmaster"?
> >
>
> IMHO, hat would seem a bad idea. Let's not take the politicising too
> far.
>
> I would say leave it at abolishing 'slave' (as we have already done).
>
>
> But that raises an important point, which is that if we remove master
> entirely from the replication lexicon, then I don't see how multi-master
> makes sense. If consistency is a goal, postmaster still works but there
> is no alternative to multi-master in common usage.
At various events and tradeshows that include representation from other
database systems, the terminology that I hear is "active-active" -- this
is not one-off, but from a lot of people. This is also a common term for
the major proprietary systems as well. I hear it much more commonly than
"multi-master" even.
> Can I make a suggestion here to help ease that problem:
>
> We standardize on "primary" and "replica" but on the first usage of
> "primary" we have a parenthetical note that "primary" is sometimes
> called "master" so that terms like multi-master continue to be
> intuitively intelligible.
I'd +1 s/master/primary/ -- I don't know if it needs parenthetical on
the first usage in places (maybe in sections on replication/clustering,
but not everywhere).
Let's at least consider using "active-active" instead of "multi-master"
given there is already usage of that term in the industry. It would be
good to see what other systems do; matching terminology could have its
advantages. It's not politicizing if we're making the terminology more
inline with the industry.
I don't think postmaster needs to change; this is a title in many
countries[1] and I presume would also require a nontrivial effort and
potentially affect systems.
Jonathan
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostmasterAttachments:
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Subject: Re: I'm surprised to see the word master here
In-Reply-To: <d94aceeb-6bd9-6668-7cf1-157028a5d254@postgresql.org>
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