From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie>
cc: Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net>, Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com>,
        Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@2ndquadrant.com>,
        Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>,
        Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>,
        David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com>,
        Justin Pryzby <pryzby@telsasoft.com>,
        Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com>,
        Tomas Vondra <tomas.vondra@2ndquadrant.com>,
        "pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org" <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Default setting for enable_hashagg_disk
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Comments: In-reply-to Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie>
	message dated "Fri, 10 Jul 2020 10:26:27 -0700"
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Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2020 13:46:57 -0400
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Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie> writes:
> On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 7:17 AM Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> wrote=
:
>> Due to the fact that we're in beta and now is not the time to be
>> redesigning this feature.

> Did you read the discussion?

Beta is when we fix problems that testing exposes in new features.
Obviously, we'd rather not design new APIs at this point, but if it's
the only reasonable way to resolve a problem, that's what we've got
to do.  I don't think anyone is advocating for reverting the hashagg
spill feature, and "do nothing" is not an attractive option either.
On the other hand, it's surely too late to engage in any massive
redesigns such as some of this thread has speculated about.

I looked over Peter's patch in [1], and it seems generally pretty
sane to me, though I concur with the idea that it'd be better to
define the GUC as a multiplier for work_mem.  (For one thing, we could
then easily limit it to be at least 1.0, ensuring sanity; also, if
work_mem does eventually become more dynamic than it is now, we might
still be able to salvage this knob as something useful.  Or if not,
we just rip it out.)  So my vote is for moving in that direction.

			regards, tom lane

[1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CAH2-WzmD%2Bi1pG6rc1%2BCjc4V6EaF=
J_qSuKCCHVnH%3DoruqD-zqow%40mail.gmail.com