On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 07:33:19PM +0530, Abhijit Menon-Sen wrote:
> At 2015-06-01 23:35:23 -0500, htfoot@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > No, it won't prevent the incredibly stupid from doing incredibly
> > stupid things, nothing will.
>
> I hate to speechify, but I think we should try hard to avoid framing
> such questions in terms of "incredibly stupid" people and the things
> they might do.
>
> We have anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that the names pg_xlog and
> pg_clog have given some people the impression that they can delete files
> therein. Sometimes do this when their server is in imminent danger of
> running out of space, sometimes not. But our documentation makes it
> clear that these files are important.
>
> I think naming these directories to convey the right impression is a
> straightforward interface design problem, and we also know that big
> flashing red warnings are less effective than one might hope for. I
> do not think a bigger, stripier warning is worth doing in isolation.
> I do think it's worth choosing better names.
I think we also have to consider that these admins are in crisis mode
when the run out of disk space, so they are not in a calm environment
where decisions are considered carefully. You can say decisions should
always be considered carefully, but I am not sure how realistic that is.
-- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://enterprisedb.com
+ Everyone has their own god. +
