Re: Throw some low-level C scutwork at me - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

> OK, so, when I initially started catching up on this thread, I was
> kind of feeling annoyed at Tom, and I still wish he'd say something
> along the lines of "I did not mean to give offense and I'm sorry if my
> words came across in a way that I did not intend" rather than just
> explaining why he reacted the way he did.

I think it's just Tom's way.

Higgins (from Pygmalion):
The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.

For comparison, here is a recent message from Tom addressed to me, along with my response:
=================================================================
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Lane [mailto:tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 3:21 PM
> To: Dann Corbit
> Cc: Andrew Dunstan; pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Building Postgresql under Windows question
>
> "Dann Corbit" <DCorbit@connx.com> writes:
> >> From: Andrew Dunstan [mailto:andrew@dunslane.net]
>
> >> Why won't
> >> PQstatus(conn) == CONNECTION_OK
> >> be true and thus the code will succeed without requiring a password?
>
> > It returns the value CONNECTION_STARTED
>
> It certainly shouldn't.  You're effectively asserting that PQconnectdb
> is broken for everyone on every platform, which is demonstrably not the
> case.  Are you fooling with modified libpq code by any chance?

No.
The service works correctly when I use password authentication.
The service does not work correctly when I use trust.

What happens when you use trust in pg_hba.conf?
=================================================================

Now, I do not think that Tom is a bad person at all.  Quite the contrary, he's clearly very smart and also goes to great lengths in attempts to be helpful (sometimes chewing someone out is being helpful as well).  He sometimes comes off as brusque -- but to some degree that comes from reading between the lines and being over sensitive.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that when making any sort of message sent to the internet, the most sensible policy is to grow a skin at least five inches thick.

I am certainly glad that Tom is on the PostgreSQL team.  I expect that the product will come out ahead from it in the long run.  And as for being offended, I am reminded of a Bible proverb:
(Ecclesiastes 7:9) Do not hurry yourself in your spirit to become offended, for the taking of offense is what rests in the bosom of the stupid ones.

> That having been said, as
> far as I can tell, your feeling that Tom said something rude is based
> largely on the fact that he used the word "sucked", and perhaps the
> phrase "rejected out of hand".  Admittedly, Tom could have described
> why he thought it sucked rather than just saying that it did, and he
> could have said that he would vote against accepting it and believed
> that others would not like it either rather than phrasing it in the
> way that he did.
>
> Then again, you didn't offer any justification for your desire to have
> them in there either.  You didn't ask whether they'd been previously
> considered or whether the community would find them desirable.  You
> didn't make an argument for why they'd be better than the system
> currently in use or even, at least as far as can be determined from
> reading the email that set off this flame war, take the time to
> understand that system before proposing your own.
>
> One thing I have discovered about pgsql-hackers is that it is very
> easy to be accused of not having done your homework even if you
> actually have.  I have seen more than one well-thought-out proposal
> shot down by a committer who (as it seemed to me) had thought it
> through less carefully than the person proposing it.  On the other
> hand, there are five or ten half-baked ideas for every good one, so
> the committers have something of a difficult job sifting the wheat
> from the chaff.  If this initial bad experience doesn't turn you off
> to this community (and I hope it won't), then I think the moral of the
> story is to make sure that you've done your homework before you put
> forward a specific proposal.  Search the archives and be ready to
> answer objections that were raised to your idea previously, or to
> similar ideas, if any.  Read the documentation, which is excellent and
> contains not only descriptions of the functionality of PostgreSQL but
> a certain amount of discussion of the internals, implementation, etc.
> Since you're a git user, use "git log <pathspec>" and "git log
> -S<word>" to sift through the history, and "git grep <regexp>" to
> search the current tree.  Browse the wiki (though it's navigability is
> less than excellent) and Google a bunch of related terms.  Then write
> up your idea and send it out in the form of a proposal, and see if you
> get any support.  Lack of a response is not necessarily fatal (you can
> bring it up again in a month or two, perhaps in response to a related
> suggestion from someone else; or add it the CommitFest wiki if it's a
> patch) but if you get a couple of -1s you probably need to rethink
> things.  I have yet to see anything that I thought was a really good
> idea have more than one person speak against it, which I think speaks
> to the fact that this community includes a lot of very, very smart and
> sharp people.  I'm sorry that it's come across as inhospitable, but I
> hope you decide to tough it out.
>
> ...Robert
>
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