Re: [pgsql-pkg-debian] Re: We should not transition to apt.postgresql.org until we have a PPA

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From: Stefan Kaltenbrunner <[email protected]>
To: Josh Berkus <[email protected]>
Cc: Dave Page <[email protected]>
Cc: Bruce Momjian <[email protected]>
Cc: Christoph Berg <[email protected]>
Cc: Martin Pitt <[email protected]>
Cc: Magnus Hagander <[email protected]>
Cc: PostgreSQL WWW <[email protected]>
Cc: PostgreSQL in Debian <[email protected]>
Cc: Tom Lane <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [pgsql-pkg-debian] Re: We should not transition to apt.postgresql.org until we have a PPA
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:32:55 +0100
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On 02/18/2013 09:07 PM, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Stefan,
> 
>> I heavily disagree - while there are certainly improvements to be made I
>> don't think what we have is a "major step backwards" - we now have stuff
>> we did not have before, like a much larger selection of packages for a
>> much larger number of distributions and like with every project we ever
>> did we will have to do incremental improvements.
> 
> From the perspective of someone using Martin's PPA, it is a major step
> backwards.  The PPA had all of the packages I was interested in, and
> took 5% of the time to install per system as the new procedure does.
> 
> It may not be a step backwards for pure Debian, or for users on old/odd
> Ubuntu versions, but it *certainly* is for current Ubuntu.
> 
>> Comparing for example the current apt.postgresql.org instructions to
>> what we have for the rpm package we are imho on parity (like people
>> complain about it being hard to figure out what their current OS is -
>> you need to know that for rpms as well and afaik there has been no
>> complaints about that).
> 
> You clearly haven't tried to follow both procedures from scratch, let
> alone tried to teach them to anyone else.

I did - running debian, ubuntu AND centos, the main difference is from
dealing with downrating the distribution versions compared to the pgdg ones.
I have not much experience teaching that stuff to others but that might
be because people find the instructions enough so I have never been
asked to explain them.


> 
> I'm being reminded of when I first joined OpenSolaris at Sun, and I
> complained that booting the system for the first time required editing
> several files using vi, with no alternate editor available, even vim.
> One of the Solaris engineers said "if you don't want to learn vi, you
> have no business running Solaris".  That sort of attitude is one of the
> major reasons Opensolaris never succeeded in expanding the market for
> Solaris.

which is imho not even closely comparable to the current instructions in
terms of complexity...

> 
> I will point out that some developers run Ubuntu and Debian on their
> desktops.  These folks are not Sysadmins.  Requiring them to have the
> knowledge to edit cryptic packaging files correctly, and look up the
> stupid Debian "codename", just means that they will not use a current
> version of PostgreSQL, and thus will be ignorant of our new features.
> Some of these developers will turn to Redis and Mongo instead, because
> those databases each have a 30-second installation procedure which
> requires no systems knowledge.

those developers will simply use whatever they default OS provides - and
frankly I think that for most people that is actually more sensible than
using -pgdg packages. Debian and Ubuntu have very good support for
postgresql...


> 
> We already got our clock cleaned by MySQL once upon a time because
> "PostgreSQL is too hard to install".  Let's not do it again.

quality first is the main argument here - the maintainer of the current
"oh its so wunderful" ppa setup itself says that the new system is
superior for erm (among others) "better QA".
I don't resist making our user experience better for installing stuff,
in fact I welcome it a _LOT_ but telling everybody that adding a string
to a file is a major hurdle does not help progress either...


Stefan


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