Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 06:21:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>
To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Overhauling GUCS
In-Reply-To: <48437B1C.5010708@commandprompt.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.64.0806020549580.26912@westnet.com>
References: <63029b9d3ba7ab56c1fc11e42619eaf1@biglumber.com>
	<48437B1C.5010708@commandprompt.com>
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On Sun, 1 Jun 2008, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> Well I don't know that a minimum of comments is what I am arguing as 
> much as not too much comments.

Josh's proposal included making three levels of documentation-level 
comments available:  terse, normal, and verbose.  The verbose comment 
level probably should include a web link to full documentation.  The way 
the comments litter the existing file, the status quo that's called normal 
mode in this proposal, is IMHO a complete mess.  Most use cases I can 
think of want either no comments or really verbose ones, the limited 
commentary in the current sample postgresql.conf seems a middle ground 
that's not right for anybody.

The key thing thing here in my mind is that it should be possible to 
transform between those three different verbosity levels without losing 
any settings or user-added comments.  They're really just different views 
on the same data, and which view you're seeing should be easy to change 
without touching the data.

I just extracted the original design proposal and some of the relevent 
follow-up in this thread, made some additional suggestions, and put the 
result at http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/GUCS_Overhaul I think reading 
that version makes it a bit clearer what the proposed overhaul is aiming 
for.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD