From: Bob Ippolito <bob@redivi.com>
To: jonah.harris@gmail.com
Cc: josh@agliodbs.com, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, mark@mark.mielke.cc, nathan wagner <nw@hydaspes.if.org>
Subject: Re: uuid type for postgres
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 13:24:18 -0700
Message-ID: <3F60E55D-B558-4929-B614-C230EACFF473@redivi.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <36e6829205090612575b954f38@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20050906135057.GA24136@granicus.if.org>
<20050906144930.GA27641@mark.mielke.cc>
<200509061002.43803.josh@agliodbs.com>
<36e6829205090612575b954f38@mail.gmail.com>
On Sep 6, 2005, at 12:57 PM, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
> On 9/6/05, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
> Mark,
>
> > I suggest that UUID be recommended in place of SERIAL for certain
> > classes of applications, and that it therefore belongs in the core.
> > UUID and SERIAL can be used together (although, once you have a
> UUID,
> > it may not be useful to also have a SERIAL).
>
> I think that, if you want to push a refactored UUID type for
> PostgreSQL
> 8.2, that you'd better separate your database design arguments from
> your
> inclusion arguments.
>
> For example, you might get my agreement that it would be useful to
> have a
> UUID as a core type; you would *never* get my agreement to
> recommend using
> UUID to newbies. I have seen *far* too many abuses of UUIDs in
> really
> bad database design. People who use them should be experienced
> enough to
> know what they're doing.
>
> I agree with Josh on the UUID type, it gets abused far too often
> and (IMHO) isn't widely enough used to belong in the core.
> Couldn't you just fix the problem in pguuid rather than write a
> whole new type?
>
This sounds like a strawman argument. People abuse a lot of types to
do a lot of things they shouldn't be doing, adding types to the core
isn't really going to change that much one way or the other.
If the documentation gives the user a good idea of when to use UUID
and when not, I think it would be a good addition. Worst case, it
could become part of contrib, so at least it ships with PostgreSQL
with the same license. The GPL license of pguuid is a show-stopper
for some (and seems like a silly choice for what it is and who it's
for).
-bob
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To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Cc: bob@redivi.com, jonah.harris@gmail.com, nw@hydaspes.if.org
Subject: Re: uuid type for postgres
In-Reply-To: <3F60E55D-B558-4929-B614-C230EACFF473@redivi.com>
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