Re: Release Notes: Major Changes in 8.2 - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

I created a major features list for 8.2 and put it into CVS.  Instead of
going into detail (meaning the item would not appear in the "Changes"
section below, I just highlighted some of the big stuff, and was
purposely vague about the details, so people just have an overview of
what is below.

Let me know how it looks.

Simon's list below looks good, but it really has a lot of details,
particuarly it goes into use-cases for many of the features, and in fact
goes into more detail that we even have in the release notes now.  Is
that what people want?  My concern is that if we push too much
information, it is hard to see the actual features, i.e. if we say, "we
have feature X, and it is good for Y, Z, and Q" do people remember Y and
Z and forget X?

Again, I don't want to be the person writing these release notes, so I
am looking for feedback, good or bad.

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Simon Riggs wrote:
> I'd like to include a section on Major changes in this release at the
> top of the release notes, as has been done for at least the last 6 major
> releases. The notes below are one stab at that, for **discussion**. I've
> tried to arrange specific changes into groups... 
> 
> 
> Major changes in this release:
> 
> Improved scalability and performance on multi-processor systems (Tom,
> Alvaro, Itagaki, Qingqing, Heikki)
> 
>     A variety of changes improves the performance of both sequential scans
> and index scans, as well as enhancing multi-processor scalability. The
> advanced query optimizer has also been further enhanced, allowing
> indexes and partitioning to be useful in more cases. 
> 
> Improved utility and large query performance (Tom, Simon, Alon, Andreas)
> 
>     Large sorts will have typical performance increases of 100-300%,
> improving complex queries and creating new indexes. Loading times have
> also been reduced. Large queries, data loads, upgrades and restores will
> be considerably improved.
> 
> Improved monitoring and performance tuning (Tom, Bruce, Greg, Larry)
> 
>     Overhead of statistics collection has been considerably reduced and new
> statistics and system information is available. Better query logging
> improves diagnostics and especially performance tuning. Server now
> includes DTrace support. Indexes can now also be created CONCURRENTLY,
> allowing application tuning without effecting server availability.
> 
> Zero administration overhead now possible (Alvaro)
> 
>     With autovacuum enabled, all required vacuuming will now take place
> without administrator intervention enabling wider distribution of
> embedded databases.
> 
> Improved defaults and configuration (Peter, Andrew)
> 
>     Installation defaults are now improved for many tunable memory
> parameters and these can now be specified in kB, MB and GB. 
> 
> Warm Standby Servers for High Availability (Simon, Tom)
> 
>     Warm Standby servers can now be more easily configured and are
> appropriate in a wider range of circumstances than previously.
> 
> Improved scalability and performance of text search: GIN and Tsearch2
> (Teodor, Oleg)
> 
>     New GIN indexes allow much larger text search indexes than were
> previously possible. TSearch2 has been enhanced and performance has also
> been greatly improved.
> 
> Enhanced DML Functionality (Jonah, Joe, Tom, Susanne, Atsushi)
> 
>     INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE RETURNING and INSERT .. VALUES (), VALUES (),
> VALUES () allow more efficient application designs. Enhancements to
> UPDATE and DELETE allow additional constructs for clarity and ease of
> use.
> 
> SQL:2003 Analytical functions (Sergey, Tom, Neil)
> 
>     All statistical aggregate functions defined by SQL:2003 are now
> supported and user-defined aggregates now can take multiple columns as
> inputs.
> 
> -- 
>   Simon Riggs             
>   EnterpriseDB   http://www.enterprisedb.com
> 
> 
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--  Bruce Momjian   bruce@momjian.us EnterpriseDB    http://www.enterprisedb.com
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