On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 1:56 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:
>> One thing that concerns me is that we already had the problem that users
>> creating the uuid-ossp extension had to double-quote the name because of
>> the dash, and we have regularly questioned the viability of the
>> uuid-ossp codebase.
>
>> Now that we know we have to support alternatives, we are changing the
>> build API to support those alternatives, but doing nothing to decouple
>> the extension name from uuid-ossp and the dash issue.
>
> Well, if you've got a proposal for how to rename the extension without
> creating major compatibility problems, let's hear it.
>
>> Seems this would be the logical time to just break compatibility and get
>> a sane API for UUID generation.
>
> Most people think the "sane API" would be to put the functionality in
> core, and forget about any extension name at all. The compatibility
> problems with that approach aren't exactly trivial either, but I suspect
> that's where we'll end up in the long run. So I'm not that excited about
> kluge solutions for renaming the extension.
FWIW, I'm with Bruce. I see no compelling reason to put this
functionality in core, but it sure would be nice to have it named
something less dumb. (Don't ask me how to get there, because I
dunno.)
Also FWIW, I agree that adding this portability code now was the right
decision. I can't see that this introduced significant instability
into PostgreSQL; if anything, it probably decreased it, because before
we had each packager hacking on it on their own, and coming up with
their own ad-hoc solutions. Now we have an official way of doing this
which we can at least hope will be universally adopted. Perhaps Tom
could have waited a bit longer before committing to make sure all
voices were heard, but had discussion ensued I would have voted
strongly for the change.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
