On Fri, 12 Nov 1999, Thomas Lockhart wrote:
> > Well, okay, everyone that wants to set their PostgreSQL user id
> > explicitly, send me a note and I'll put it back in, which ever way.
>
> I thought that Tom Lane was representing me just fine, so was keeping
> quiet ;)
Okay, vote noted.
> An aside on procedures: on a change like this, I might have expected a
> discussion on functionality *before* the patch was developed, since it
> changes a seemingly fundamental feature. Though I haven't thought of a
> strong, or even weak, argument for why id matching is necessary, it is
> a topic about which there has been no discussion in the past, so I
> didn't realize I needed an opinion until now.
It seems to me that especially in the code I'm digging around now, there
are a lot of way old things lying around (think Postgres95). When I ask if
someone actually uses them I usually get responses like "No, we can't yank
it, someone might be using it", which doesn't answer my question at all.
Thus I found it more effective to threaten removal first and then see if
someone speaks up.
> Another aside: I'd like to think that most good ideas which stand the
> test of an extended discussion will get a consensus to form. So if you
> really think this is a step forward then keep talking about it; don't
> give up too soon...
I just remember the heart-breaking discussion about the pg_ prefix ;)
Well, I outlined my points: 1) It confuses users, 2) It doesn't match the
SQL, 3) user IDs are internal representations that you should not be able
to mess with with user-level tools, 4) If you can pick it, you should also
be able to change it later. But you can't, really.
> Back on topic: If there is currently no apparent need for a link
> between Postgres user ids and external system ids, it is the case that
> this is an obvious mechanism to make that link. So if someday a user
> or a system feature needs it, it is already there and has been so from
> day 1. afaik other DBs have a similar attribute for users.
This is based on the premise that it would somehow be useful to link Unix
and PostgreSQL users. In that case this would certainly be needed.
However, this would be a significant step backwards, since database users
are in general not equal to system users, most importantly since clients
might run on completely different systems than the server.
-Peter
--
Peter Eisentraut Sernanders vaeg 10:115
peter_e@gmx.net 75262 Uppsala
http://yi.org/peter-e/ Sweden
