On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 12:18 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 11:44 AM, Peter Eisentraut
>> <peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
>>> On 3/21/17 08:12, Robert Haas wrote:
>>>> I think a big part of the usability problem here comes from the fact
>>>> that the default database for connections is based on the username,
>>>> but the default databases that get created have fixed names (postgres,
>>>> template1). So the default configuration is one where you can't
>>>> connect. Why the heck do we do it that way?
>
>>> Historical, probably. We could ponder changing the way the default
>>> database is determined, but I don't want to imagine the breakage coming
>>> out of that.
>
>> What do you think would break?
>
> Any configuration depending on the existing default?
>
> The existing behavior here dates from before we had schemas, so that
> if users wanted to have private objects they *had* to use separate
> databases. Nowadays a schema-per-user within one database makes a lot
> more sense for many environments, and we even have the default value
> for search_path set up to make that as painless as possible. Still,
> it's not a solution for everybody, particularly not installations
> that want to keep their users well separated.
>
> Perhaps we could satisfy novices by changing the out-of-the-box
> behavior, but provide some way to select the old behavior for
> installations that are really depending on it.
Hmm. I guess that would mean that the same connection string would
mean something different depending on how you configured this
behavior, which does not sound like a good idea. But why not go the
other way and just create the default database by default, either in
addition to or instead of the postgres database? I mean, most people
probably do this:
initdb
pg_ctl start
createdb
If initdb created the database that you currently have to create as a
separate step by running 'createdb', I bet we'd eliminate a metric
buttload of new user confusion and harm almost nobody. Anybody who
doesn't want that extra database can just drop it.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
