Re: Is my MySQL Gaining ? - Mailing list pgsql-general

I agree with most of this sentiment. Even knowing SQL and RDBMs reasonably
well, there is still a significant effort involved in moving from another
RDBMS (in my case Oracle) to postgres.

The postgres docs provide much all the detail (in a very concise form).
The hard part is putting all the different pieces together to solve some
problem. In fact, this is where the postgres users list is so good,
because the support and feedback from it is excellent.

Contrast this page from the docs (for the update statement),
http://www.postgres.org/docs/current/interactive/sql-update.html with
Oracle's (for 8.1.7)
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/A87860_01/doc/server.817/a85397/state27a.htm#2067717

Some might feel that much of the information is redundant or bloat. I
disagree - you get a feel for what is possible as well as links to other
commands, subtopics, and concept explanations.

Someone commented that maintaining docs (of this sort) would be too hard -
I disagree. Many of the commands are *mostly* implementation agnostic, and
the initial docs would require siginificant effort to build, but should
only require moderate maintenance as features are added or modified.

Just my two cents (again).

John Sidney-Woollett

ps And yes, I would be willing to help once my current project is complete...

Tony said:
> By that logic then, we can probably ditch the PG Tutorial altogether and
> provide a quick ref card of PG commands and keywords, with a few pages
> on how PG is different should be plenty.
>
> The bisggest problem that I faced when moving to PG was the complete
> lack of any cetralised information source for this information.  Sure
> there are tutorials on the web, first track them down, then convert
> their use to PG then collate them, then make some sense of it all.
> This is the kind of aloofness that I have mentioned previously, just
> because it doesn't belong, doesn't mean it's not needed, and it only
> needs to be written once.  Although I know some of the concepts and I'm
> beginning to grock them, I'm still trying to collate enough to satisfy
> my needs.
>
> Assuming yo *do* want to grow the PG community and attract people from
> other systems, the easier the transition for them, the less likely they
> are to look elsewhere for something that appears easier.   Easier
> doesn't always mean easier to use, sometimes it can mean easier to get
> to grips with.
>
> T.
>
> Shridhar Daithankar wrote:
>
>>For one thing, these thing do not belong to postgresql documentation.
>>
>>But I don't believe there is shortage of material on these topics on web
>> and
>>in print.
>>
>>However if you are refering to explaining these things, w.r.t.
>> postgresql, I
>>would be more than happy to churn out some extremely basic tutorials.
>>
>>Can you tell us what all you need? Rephrasing, if you know these(and some
>>other) concpets by now, what all you missed while learning postgresql?
>>
>>It may sound like stupid question but unlearning things out of
>> imagination is
>>not easy...:-)
>>
>> Shridhar
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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