Re: Sixth Draft - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

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More critiques. You people move so fast: some of us have daytime
jobs ya know! :)

> "The PostgreSQL developer community is strong and vibrant, with more than a
> dozen active committers, each from a worldwide spread of companies, many of
> whom sponsor full-time developers. Active contributions came from more than
> 1000 individuals for this latest release, based upon detailed statistics."

This sounds terrible. The "dozen" figure smacks of a small, built-in-a-garage
atmosphere, while the "1000 individuals" sounds like a desperate attempt to
reach a large number. Keep it the original way and simply say "hundreds
of developers" Add in a "worldwide" if you must.

> August 24, 2004 - The PostgreSQL Global Development group today announced
> the availability of the 8.0 version of the PostgreSQL Object-Relational
> Database Management System, the most advanced open source database in the
> world today.  With this new release, professional users have an
> world-class, scalable, open source database solution that does not
> sacrifice many of the conveniences provided by commercial products.

First, "the 8.0 version" sounds a bit awkward. How about simply "version 8"
We can leave off the "dot o". The phrase "in the world today" is still
wordy: "in the world" is sufficient. The word "sacrifice" is not a good
one, especially in an opening paragraph. The "conveniences" is a pretty
vague concept.

> PostgreSQL 8.0 contains many new features that make the database a strong
> contender against the likes of Oracle and DB2.  Many companies, who view
> PostgreSQL as a strategic part of their overall I.T. plan, have sponsored
> development of the new features, which include:

Replace "the likes of" with something stronger. IT does not need to have periods:
it is an ancronym. The word "contendor" implies an up-and-coming but perhaps
not quite equal yet competitor. We're better than that, at least as far as
DB2. Certainly we're easier to use than Oracle. What I would not give for
some backslash commands in that crappy sqlplus! :)

> Native Windows Support:  PostgreSQL now works natively with Windows
> systems and does not need an emulation layer.  This provides dramatically
> improved performance over previous versions, and offers a compelling
> alternative to Microsoft SQL Server for independent software vendors,
> corporate users, and individual Windows developers.

Do we need to mention the emulation layer at all? Seems it is sort of
implied by "now native" and "previous versions". We could also trim out
the list of people and simply stop the sentence at "Server." to save
lots of room.

> Tablespaces:  This feature, also funded by Fujitsu, allows the database
> administrator to choose which filesystems are used for schemas, tables,
> and indexes.  This allows the administrator to place whole databases on
> separate disks to improve performance.

The second sentence is probably not needed.

> Improved Memory and I/O usage:  With this release of PostgreSQL, disk
> input/output subsystems have been improved to use shared buffers more
> effectively, yielding significant increases in speed and performance.

To be consistent, "usage" needs to be capitalized. This paragraph is
pretty vague, unlike the others which mention specific features that
people have heard of or can relate to. This basically says "we mucked
around with the internals to make things faster." A more concete
example or statement would be better here. Or leaving the paragraph
off altogether.

> There are also several new external components which complement the core
> PostgreSQL database engine:

"External components" sounds odd. The 3c alliteration doesn't help either.

> - PostgreSQL added to its roster of stored procedure languages with
> PL/PerlNG and PL/PHP which were sponsored by consultancy Command Prompt,
> Inc. as well as PL/Java and the .Net provider Npgsql.

"Roster" is not the best word to use here. Command Prompt is mentioned
as a "consultancy" but none of the other companies are similarly explained.
There should be a comma after PHP, or put the sponsorship clause in parens.

> Version 8 is the collective work of hundreds of developers, building on
> almost twenty years of development dating back to the University of
> California at Berkeley.

Ah, good, that's the way I wanted the version to appear. Whichever we choose,
make it consistent. I still don't think that UC needs to be mentioned.

> PostgreSQL is licensed under a BSD-style license, which due to its lack of
> licensing fees allows corporate and individual users more flexibility than
> the competition.  The PostgreSQL database can be downloaded freely at
> http://www.postgresql.org.

I'll leave the license part to others. "The PostgreSQL database" sounds
wrong: make it simply "PostrgeSQL" or make it a RDBMS. Since this is the
last paragraph, it should also mention version 8 again, and perhaps make
a final little plug.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200409022151

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