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From: Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie>
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2021 17:41:42 -0700
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 <CAH2-Wznh7J2Ey6dshcyjdkH5taFz4V6bN2rJL5MH6xyOuo=9mw@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: partial heap only tuples
To: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
Cc: "Bossart, Nathan" <bossartn@amazon.com>,
	"pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org" <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>, "McAlister,
 Grant" <grant@amazon.com>,
	"Mlodgenski, Jim" <mlodj@amazon.com>, "Nasby, Jim" <nasbyj@amazon.com>, "Hsu,
 John" <hsuchen@amazon.com>
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On Mon, Apr 19, 2021 at 5:09 PM Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
> > A diversity of strategies with fallback behavior is sometimes the best
> > strategy. Don't underestimate the contribution of rare and seemingly
> > insignificant adverse events. Consider the lifecycle of the data over
>
> That is an intersting point --- we often focus on optimizing frequent
> operations, but preventing rare but expensive-in-aggregate events from
> happening is also useful.

Right. Similarly, we sometimes focus on adding an improvement,
overlooking more promising opportunities to subtract a disimprovement.
Apparently this is a well known tendency:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-brain-typically-overlooks-this-brilliant-problem-solving-strategy/

I believe that it's particularly important to consider subtractive
approaches with a complex system. This has sometimes worked well for
me as a conscious and deliberate strategy.

--
Peter Geoghegan