Date: Thu, 20 May 2021 16:35:07 -0400
From: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>
To: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
Cc: Justin Pryzby <pryzby@telsasoft.com>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: PG 14 release notes, first draft
Message-ID: <20210520203507.GA21233@alvherre.pgsql>
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On 2021-May-20, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> On Thu, May 20, 2021 at 02:55:18PM -0500, Justin Pryzby wrote:
> > On Thu, May 20, 2021 at 03:44:46PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > > | Reduce the default value of vacuum_cost_page_miss (Peter Geoghegan) 
> > > > |  This new default better reflects current hardware capabilities. 
> > > > Also say: the previous default was 10.
> > > 
> > > Uh, we didn't report the new value, so why report the old one?
> > 
> > Good point.
> > For symmetry with this one, maybe the old and new values should be included?
> 
> Not sure.  Those values are kind of hard to understand, so I am afraid
> there would be more confusion by mentioning them.
> 
> > |Change checkpoint_completion_target default to 0.9 (Stephen Frost)
> > |The previous default was 0.5.
> 
> Uh, that one is frequently modified by users, to an extent I didn't
> understand why we kept it at 0.5 for so long, which is why I mentioned
> it.

You also mentioned 'md5' in the entry about password_encryption,
remember?  I tend to agree with Justin: if it's not too much extra space
to mention both values, let's just do that.  "Reduce the value of X to Y
from Z.  The new default better reflects ..." seems OK to me.

I prefer "to Y from Z" rather than "from Z to Y", because then the new
value appears first, which seems a tiny improvement in readability,
though the phrase is in the opposite order of traditional.  Also it
seems better than "change value of X to Y.  The previous default was Z"
because it then becomes a little more verbose than really needed.  But
maybe that's OK too.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                            39°49'30"S 73°17'W
"La fuerza no está en los medios físicos
sino que reside en una voluntad indomable" (Gandhi)