For most beginners (and even a lot of advanced users) there is a strong confusion between simple VACUUM and VACUUM FULL. They think "full" is simply an option to the maintenance operation vacuum while it's not. It's a complete different operation.
I have a hard time explaining it when I teach PostgreSQL Administration (even if I stress the matter) and I constantly meet customer that are wrong about it.
I think that the way we name this two operations is not helping them. I had to work with SQL Server some years ago and they use the word "SHRINK" to do something similar to "VACUUM FULL". I don't know if it's the best option, I think others can be found (COMPACT, DEFRAGMENT...)
Of course, for compatibility reasons, VACUUM FULL should always be available, but I think an alias that is less confusing for people could be a good thing.
What do you think ?
Although VACUUM and VACUUM FULL is different, then result is same (depends on detail level) - the data files are optimized for other processing. You should to see a VACUUM like family of commands that does some data files optimizations. VACUUM, VACUUM FULL, VACUUM FREEZE, VACUUM ANALYZE, ... Personally I don't think so we need to implement new synonym command for this case. Why you you cannot to say your students - "VACUUM FULL is like SHRINK in SQL Server"?
