Received: from maia.hub.org (maia-5.hub.org [200.46.204.29]) by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8A5691337B77 for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2011 13:47:04 -0400 (AST) Received: from mail.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.86]) by maia.hub.org (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.29]) (amavisd-maia, port 10024) with ESMTP id 21317-09 for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2011 17:46:57 +0000 (UTC) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.6 Received: from sss.pgh.pa.us (sss.pgh.pa.us [66.207.139.130]) by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B08BA1337B5D for ; Thu, 3 Feb 2011 13:46:56 -0400 (AST) Received: from sss2.sss.pgh.pa.us (tgl@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss.pgh.pa.us (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id p13HknJ4025147; Thu, 3 Feb 2011 12:46:49 -0500 (EST) To: Robert Haas cc: Bruce Momjian , Mladen Gogala , Greg Smith , Andrew Dunstan , "david@lang.hm" , Craig Ringer , Vitalii Tymchyshyn , "pgsql-performance@postgresql.org" Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Slow count(*) again... In-reply-to: References: <4D4AD9F6.6040903@vmsinfo.com> <201102031656.p13Guug09499@momjian.us> Comments: In-reply-to Robert Haas message dated "Thu, 03 Feb 2011 12:28:29 -0500" Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2011 12:46:48 -0500 Message-ID: <25146.1296755208@sss.pgh.pa.us> From: Tom Lane X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.91 tagged_above=-10 required=5 tests=BAYES_00=-1.9, T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD=-0.01 X-Spam-Level: X-Archive-Number: 201102/90 X-Sequence-Number: 42228 Robert Haas writes: > I don't, however, agree with his contention that this is easy to > implement. It would be easy to implement something that sucked. It > would be hard to implement something that actually helped in the cases > where the existing settings aren't already sufficient. Exactly. A hint system that actually did more good than harm would be a very nontrivial project. IMO such effort is better spent on making the optimizer smarter. regards, tom lane