Re: Should we put command options in alphabetical order in the doc? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Mon, Apr 17, 2023 at 10:45 PM David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com> wrote:
> For the case of reindex.sgml, I do see that the existing parameter
> order lists INDEX | TABLE | SCHEMA | DATABASE | SYSTEM first which is
> the target of the reindex. I wondered if that was worth keeping. I'm
> just thinking that since all of these are under the "Parameters"
> heading that we should class them all as equals and just make the
> order alphabetical. I feel that if we don't do that then the order to
> add any new parameters is just not going to be obvious and we'll end
> up with things getting out of order again quite quickly.

I don't think that alphabetical order makes much sense. Surely some
parameters are more important than others. Surely there is some kind
of natural grouping that makes somewhat more sense than alphabetical
order.

Take the VACUUM command. Right now FULL, FREEZE, and VERBOSE all come
first. Those options are approximately the most important options --
especially VERBOSE. But your patch places VERBOSE dead last.

--
Peter Geoghegan