Re: Postgresql Materialized views - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

<sarcasm>Good to see</sarcasm> things haven't changed, and requests for 
features and improvements on the pgsql-hackers list can still degenerate 
rapidly into a discussion about how to request features and improvements.

As Joshua Drake has pointed out before, most of the core people working on 
PostgreSQL don't actually use it for anything themselves. I will expand a 
little on that and say that this means that while they are extremely good at 
what they do, they really don't have a clue what might be useful to someone 
"in the wild". Sort of like automotive engineers who in the 1970's made the 
Cadillac's engine so large that you couldn't change the spark plugs without 
taking the motor mounts loose and lifting the engine.

The basic question this brings up in the context of this latest flurry of 
hurt feelings is whether user demand is officially a driving force in 
PostgreSQL development.
If the answer to that question is yes, then the next question is how is that 
structured?

I'm not sure that the collective answer to the first question is actually 
yes.  If it actually is yes, then the next question has barely been touched, 
as witnessed by these flurries of electrons on the list, unless the 
structure is Anarchy. Which is oxymoronic of course.

There doesn't appear to be an easy way to officially "take the temperature" 
of either the developer community, or the user community,  and there 
certainly is no official way to clearly and easily communicate between the 
two in order to effect change. Unfortunately for all of us, the 
communications, social, organizational, and people skills/talents necessary 
to envision and create the type of social structure that benefits the entire 
community are outside the range of experience of everyone on this list. How 
do I know that? Because if even one person had those talents/skills it would 
have happened already. That is what those type of people do, they can't help 
themselves.* I'm not sure that anyone reading this would even be able to 
recognize such a person if they met them. Perhaps we should go fishing for 
some help from one of those "University Places"? From people outside the 
Computer Science department? Maybe even some people in Industrial 
Psychology? Somebody probably needs a Master's project....

--
Sean Utt

* Actually I'm being optimistic, while organizers are compulsive, they know 
a hopeless cause when they see it, and quietly disappear. I'm operating 
under the assumption that the PostgreSQL community is not a hopeless cause 
organizationally.

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