Thread: pgAdmin vs. the competition
This list is kind of dead lately, it seems ripe for something to argue about. I toyed with sending this directly to a pgAdmin list but neither of them seemed right to derail with what is essentially a discussion of how to address competative comparisions. I'm now firmly in the middle of the MySQL vs. PostgreSQL flamewars at this point, and that involves lots of suggestions for working around what people percieve as the PG flaws. Recently I suggested to someone that if they needed a GUI management tool, pgAdmin III was what they should try. It's hard to get critical yet fair feedback out of people, I thought the rsponse I got back was quite good: "I'm writing to give a bit of feedback. Cut my teeth in MySQL via the console many years ago, moved to msSQL's semi-good GUI and then to its superior 2005 SQL Manager (best DB GUI admin on the market IMHO), then to MySQL Admin which isn't bad actually. I'm currently at a PostgreSQL shop and I'm so disspointed in pgAdmin (I'm running the newest build too). For starters it seems to lack UI elements that have been in the GUI world since Windows 3.11. Whenever PostgreSQL is busy the UI fails to give any clue, no icon changes to a spinning hourglass, no status bar filling up, not even a mindless pop-up saying "busy...". This is painfully obvious when doing a BACKUP or RESTORE. And even when either task completes, the UI/text doesn't do much to even let me know it worked. In fact it just re-enables the buttons again, where at first I'd click them and it would try to do the backup/restore again, which really made me believe the whole operation failed." I forward this along not to pick on pgAdmin, which is hampered in particular by being so cross-platform which Microsoft doesn't have to worry about, but to point out this is a not particularly obvious way PostgreSQL comparisions sometimes fail. This is not even close to the first time I've heard comments about how large the distance is between pgAdmin and the SQL Manager software in particular is, just the first time I could share the report. Something to chew on for those thinking about development resource allocation... -- * Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD
Greg Smith a écrit : > [...] > For starters it seems to lack UI elements that have been in the GUI > world since Windows 3.11. I think crossplatform development doesn't help on this issue. And wxWidgets seems, well, less interesting (in the UI) than Qt for example. > Whenever PostgreSQL is busy the UI fails to > give any clue, no icon changes to a spinning hourglass, no status bar > filling up, not even a mindless pop-up saying "busy...". This is > painfully obvious when doing a BACKUP or RESTORE. For the backup/restore stuff, I don't think pgAdmin can actually do something better. We heavily rely on pg_dump/pg_restore. Any other UI tool would need to do the same. > And even when either > task completes, the UI/text doesn't do much to even let me know it > worked. In fact it just re-enables the buttons again, where at first > I'd click them and it would try to do the backup/restore again, which > really made me believe the whole operation failed." > Which lets me think he doesn't use the latest build (1.8). > I forward this along not to pick on pgAdmin, which is hampered in > particular by being so cross-platform which Microsoft doesn't have to > worry about, but to point out this is a not particularly obvious way > PostgreSQL comparisions sometimes fail. This is not even close to the > first time I've heard comments about how large the distance is between > pgAdmin and the SQL Manager software in particular is, just the first > time I could share the report. > > Something to chew on for those thinking about development resource > allocation... > I completely agree on this. pgAdmin is really far far far away from SQL Manager. But they have many more developers than us, and they don't have to handle crossdevelopment. We need to show our differences : remote configuration, Slony support, etc. Adding pgPool, pgPool-II and pgBouncer support would be great and is something I would like to add as soon as possible. -- Guillaume. http://www.postgresqlfr.org http://dalibo.com
Guillaume Lelarge wrote: > Greg Smith a écrit : >> [...] >> For starters it seems to lack UI elements that have been in the GUI >> world since Windows 3.11. > > I think crossplatform development doesn't help on this issue. And > wxWidgets seems, well, less interesting (in the UI) than Qt for example. > >> Whenever PostgreSQL is busy the UI fails to give any clue, no icon >> changes to a spinning hourglass, no status bar filling up, not even a >> mindless pop-up saying "busy...". This is painfully obvious when >> doing a BACKUP or RESTORE. > > For the backup/restore stuff, I don't think pgAdmin can actually do > something better. We heavily rely on pg_dump/pg_restore. Any other UI > tool would need to do the same. It IS possible to do better, 'though it would be much easier if pgAdmin didn't need to use pg_dump/pg_restore external processes. > I completely agree on this. pgAdmin is really far far far away from > SQL Manager. But they have many more developers than us, and they > don't have to handle crossdevelopment. We need to show our differences > : remote configuration, Slony support, etc. Adding pgPool, pgPool-II > and pgBouncer support would be great and is something I would like to > add as soon as possible. IMNSHO a persistent problem is the somewhat restricted view of developers of additional needs, i.e. there's no good support in the tools for re-usage. Examples: The request for pg_dump/pg_restore functionality in a library is quite old. Controlling the processes isn't too much fun when doing cross-development. Slony capsules its operations in the slonik executable as well, in a very unix-like fashion. Slony support in pgadmin is mostly a re-implementation, a reinvention of the wheel. Both could provide a library, with the executables just being a thin shell around it (converting cmd line/config file params to config structures handled over to the lib). Same problem will probably arise with pgPool et al. Regards, Andreas
> I think crossplatform development doesn't help on this issue. And > wxWidgets seems, well, less interesting (in the UI) than Qt for example. > > > Whenever PostgreSQL is busy the UI fails to > > give any clue, no icon changes to a spinning hourglass, no status bar > > filling up, not even a mindless pop-up saying "busy...". This is > > painfully obvious when doing a BACKUP or RESTORE. > > For the backup/restore stuff, I don't think pgAdmin can actually do > something better. We heavily rely on pg_dump/pg_restore. Any other UI > tool would need to do the same. > > > And even when either > > task completes, the UI/text doesn't do much to even let me know it > > worked. In fact it just re-enables the buttons again, where at first > > I'd click them and it would try to do the backup/restore again, which > > really made me believe the whole operation failed." > > > > Which lets me think he doesn't use the latest build (1.8). > > > I forward this along not to pick on pgAdmin, which is hampered in > > particular by being so cross-platform which Microsoft doesn't have to > > worry about, but to point out this is a not particularly obvious way > > PostgreSQL comparisions sometimes fail. This is not even close to the > > first time I've heard comments about how large the distance is between > > pgAdmin and the SQL Manager software in particular is, just the first > > time I could share the report. > > > > Something to chew on for those thinking about development resource > > allocation... > > > > I completely agree on this. pgAdmin is really far far far away from SQL > Manager. But they have many more developers than us, and they don't have > to handle crossdevelopment. We need to show our differences : remote > configuration, Slony support, etc. Adding pgPool, pgPool-II and > pgBouncer support would be great and is something I would like to add as > soon as possible. pgpool-II provides convenient interfaces to manage pgpool-II. "PCP commands" is a set of commands to control pgpool-II. You could, for example, get status of pgool, attach/detach DB nodes etc. See http://pgpool.projects.postgresql.org/#reference for more details. Actually pgpoolAdmin(A web based pgpool-II control GUI) uses these commands to control pgpool-II. If you prefer to use C libraries, rather than UNIX commands, you could use libpcp, an C functions control pgpool-II. PCP commands actually are made on top of libpcp. If you have questions, please let me know or you could send questions on pgpool ML (http://pgfoundry.org/mail/?group_id=1000055) -- Tatsuo Ishii SRA OSS, Inc. Japan
On Friday 28 March 2008 11:38, Andreas Pflug wrote:
> Guillaume Lelarge wrote:
> > Greg Smith a écrit :
> >> [...]
> >> For starters it seems to lack UI elements that have been in the GUI
> >> world since Windows 3.11.
> >
> > I think crossplatform development doesn't help on this issue. And
> > wxWidgets seems, well, less interesting (in the UI) than Qt for example..
> >
> >> Whenever PostgreSQL is busy the UI fails to give any clue, no icon
> >> changes to a spinning hourglass, no status bar filling up, not even a
> >> mindless pop-up saying "busy...". This is painfully obvious when
> >> doing a BACKUP or RESTORE.
> >
> > For the backup/restore stuff, I don't think pgAdmin can actually do
> > something better. We heavily rely on pg_dump/pg_restore. Any other UI
> > tool would need to do the same.
>
> It IS possible to do better, 'though it would be much easier if pgAdmin
> didn't need to use pg_dump/pg_restore external processes.
>
Yeah, we tried this for awhile in PhpPgAdmin, and eventually through in the
towel; maintaining the code to be able to do cross version schema recreation
was a nightmare. Note phpMyAdmin suffers this problem as well, though they
continue to produce brokenish dumps... we switched to requiring pg_dump,
deciding incorrect dumps were worse than no dumps. Of course if postgres
supplied some type of user space tools for doing this, we'd all be much
happier.
> > I completely agree on this. pgAdmin is really far far far away from
> > SQL Manager. But they have many more developers than us, and they
> > don't have to handle crossdevelopment. We need to show our differences
> >
> > : remote configuration, Slony support, etc. Adding pgPool, pgPool-II
> >
> > and pgBouncer support would be great and is something I would like to
> > add as soon as possible.
>
> IMNSHO a persistent problem is the somewhat restricted view of
> developers of additional needs, i.e. there's no good support in the
> tools for re-usage. Examples:
> The request for pg_dump/pg_restore functionality in a library is quite
> old. Controlling the processes isn't too much fun when doing
> cross-development.
> Slony capsules its operations in the slonik executable as well, in a
> very unix-like fashion. Slony support in pgadmin is mostly a
> re-implementation, a reinvention of the wheel.
>
> Both could provide a library, with the executables just being a thin
> shell around it (converting cmd line/config file params to config
> structures handled over to the lib). Same problem will probably arise
> with pgPool et al.
+1 on all counts.
--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
On Sunday 30 March 2008 23:35, Tatsuo Ishii wrote: > > I think crossplatform development doesn't help on this issue. And > > wxWidgets seems, well, less interesting (in the UI) than Qt for example. > > > > > Whenever PostgreSQL is busy the UI fails to > > > give any clue, no icon changes to a spinning hourglass, no status bar > > > filling up, not even a mindless pop-up saying "busy...". This is > > > painfully obvious when doing a BACKUP or RESTORE. > > > > For the backup/restore stuff, I don't think pgAdmin can actually do > > something better. We heavily rely on pg_dump/pg_restore. Any other UI > > tool would need to do the same. > > > > > And even when either > > > task completes, the UI/text doesn't do much to even let me know it > > > worked. In fact it just re-enables the buttons again, where at first > > > I'd click them and it would try to do the backup/restore again, which > > > really made me believe the whole operation failed." > > > > Which lets me think he doesn't use the latest build (1.8). > > > > > I forward this along not to pick on pgAdmin, which is hampered in > > > particular by being so cross-platform which Microsoft doesn't have to > > > worry about, but to point out this is a not particularly obvious way > > > PostgreSQL comparisions sometimes fail. This is not even close to the > > > first time I've heard comments about how large the distance is between > > > pgAdmin and the SQL Manager software in particular is, just the first > > > time I could share the report. > > > > > > Something to chew on for those thinking about development resource > > > allocation... > > > > I completely agree on this. pgAdmin is really far far far away from SQL > > Manager. But they have many more developers than us, and they don't have > > to handle crossdevelopment. We need to show our differences : remote > > configuration, Slony support, etc. Adding pgPool, pgPool-II and > > pgBouncer support would be great and is something I would like to add as > > soon as possible. > > pgpool-II provides convenient interfaces to manage pgpool-II. "PCP > commands" is a set of commands to control pgpool-II. You could, for > example, get status of pgool, attach/detach DB nodes etc. See > http://pgpool.projects.postgresql.org/#reference for more details. > Actually pgpoolAdmin(A web based pgpool-II control GUI) uses these > commands to control pgpool-II. > > If you prefer to use C libraries, rather than UNIX commands, you could > use libpcp, an C functions control pgpool-II. PCP commands actually > are made on top of libpcp. > > If you have questions, please let me know or you could send questions > on pgpool ML (http://pgfoundry.org/mail/?group_id=1000055) Actually I always wondered why you built additional interfaces, rather than working with the existing pgadmin and phppgadmin projects. I suspect there might be some design issues that made it more difficult, but I'm not sure. -- Robert Treat Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
> On Sunday 30 March 2008 23:35, Tatsuo Ishii wrote: > > > I think crossplatform development doesn't help on this issue. And > > > wxWidgets seems, well, less interesting (in the UI) than Qt for example. > > > > > > > Whenever PostgreSQL is busy the UI fails to > > > > give any clue, no icon changes to a spinning hourglass, no status bar > > > > filling up, not even a mindless pop-up saying "busy...". This is > > > > painfully obvious when doing a BACKUP or RESTORE. > > > > > > For the backup/restore stuff, I don't think pgAdmin can actually do > > > something better. We heavily rely on pg_dump/pg_restore. Any other UI > > > tool would need to do the same. > > > > > > > And even when either > > > > task completes, the UI/text doesn't do much to even let me know it > > > > worked. In fact it just re-enables the buttons again, where at first > > > > I'd click them and it would try to do the backup/restore again, which > > > > really made me believe the whole operation failed." > > > > > > Which lets me think he doesn't use the latest build (1.8). > > > > > > > I forward this along not to pick on pgAdmin, which is hampered in > > > > particular by being so cross-platform which Microsoft doesn't have to > > > > worry about, but to point out this is a not particularly obvious way > > > > PostgreSQL comparisions sometimes fail. This is not even close to the > > > > first time I've heard comments about how large the distance is between > > > > pgAdmin and the SQL Manager software in particular is, just the first > > > > time I could share the report. > > > > > > > > Something to chew on for those thinking about development resource > > > > allocation... > > > > > > I completely agree on this. pgAdmin is really far far far away from SQL > > > Manager. But they have many more developers than us, and they don't have > > > to handle crossdevelopment. We need to show our differences : remote > > > configuration, Slony support, etc. Adding pgPool, pgPool-II and > > > pgBouncer support would be great and is something I would like to add as > > > soon as possible. > > > > pgpool-II provides convenient interfaces to manage pgpool-II. "PCP > > commands" is a set of commands to control pgpool-II. You could, for > > example, get status of pgool, attach/detach DB nodes etc. See > > http://pgpool.projects.postgresql.org/#reference for more details. > > Actually pgpoolAdmin(A web based pgpool-II control GUI) uses these > > commands to control pgpool-II. > > > > If you prefer to use C libraries, rather than UNIX commands, you could > > use libpcp, an C functions control pgpool-II. PCP commands actually > > are made on top of libpcp. > > > > If you have questions, please let me know or you could send questions > > on pgpool ML (http://pgfoundry.org/mail/?group_id=1000055) > > Actually I always wondered why you built additional interfaces, rather than > working with the existing pgadmin and phppgadmin projects. I suspect there > might be some design issues that made it more difficult, but I'm not sure. Well at the time when pgpool-II was born (2006), I was not very convinced pgpool-II would be accepted by users and community. Fortunately a sponsor gave us money to create a UI for pgpool-II (pgpoolAdmin), we decided to make UI by ourselves. -- Tatsuo Ishii SRA OSS, Inc. Japan