Thread: PostgreSQL 9.0
I was just looking at all the upcoming features scheduled to make it into 8.3, and with all those goodies, wouldn't it make sense for this to be a 9.0 release instead of an 8.3? It looks like postgresql is rapidly catching up to oracle if 8.3 branch gets every feature scheduled for it. About the only big features pg 8.3 doesn't have is materialized views and RMAN.. Now that PostgreSQL is getting so close to oracle functionality, is there any worry in the community that oracle will begin to target postgres like they're targeting mySQL? regards, karen
On 29 Jan 2007 13:25:31 -0800, Karen Hill <karen_hill22@yahoo.com> wrote: > I was just looking at all the upcoming features scheduled to make it > into 8.3, and with all those goodies, wouldn't it make sense for this > to be a 9.0 release instead of an 8.3? It looks like postgresql is > rapidly catching up to oracle if 8.3 branch gets every feature > scheduled for it. Well I see it in two ways. For one, the features are certainly great and a significant advance. This alone could mandate version bump to 9.0. On the other hand, the 8.x line is so successful I would like it to stay for a copule revisions more. Well, it does have a nice feeling about it: "What? Yeah, it does support windowing function, we've introduced them around version 8.3. Naah, no big deal, wait for the version 8.4, you'll be surprosed. Naah, we keep version 9.0 for truly significant changes". And I must say, I do like it. > About the only big features pg 8.3 doesn't have is materialized views > and RMAN.. Personally I'm missing two things, which were discussed in the past, but would be nice to have: * more efficient storage of varlen data -- some time ago there were ideas to get rid of constant 4-bytes for length and use more elastic approach. Smaller tables, bigger performance. * updatable views [ or am I missing something? ] -- it seems to me they were close to be completed, but I don't remember if they were completed and committed or not. Regards, Dawid
> Personally I'm missing two things, which were discussed in the > past, but would be nice to have: > * more efficient storage of varlen data -- some time ago there were > ideas to get rid of constant 4-bytes for length and use more elastic > approach. Smaller tables, bigger performance. > * updatable views [ or am I missing something? ] -- it seems to me > they were close to be completed, but I don't remember if they were > completed and committed or not. I'm missing stuff like true polymorphic function arguments and return values (where I can mix different datatypes and do variable number of parameters), also I personally hate 'select * from my_func() as table(x varchar)' syntax... system should be able to omit the table structure definition and pick it up from function return. Oh well, back to work. Where do we submit wishlist entries, anyway? Peter
"Dawid Kuroczko" <qnex42@gmail.com> writes: > * updatable views [ or am I missing something? ] -- it seems to me > they were close to be completed, but I don't remember if they were > completed and committed or not. Something different than rules? (http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/rules.html) (They exist for a while, I've just linked the latest released docs...) -- Jorge Godoy <jgodoy@gmail.com>
Jorge Godoy wrote: > "Dawid Kuroczko" <qnex42@gmail.com> writes: > > >> * updatable views [ or am I missing something? ] -- it seems to me >> they were close to be completed, but I don't remember if they were >> completed and committed or not. >> > > Something different than rules? > (http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/rules.html) (They exist for a > while, I've just linked the latest released docs...) > Quite. Rules are not updateable views. Rules are a hacked up way to create an updateable view. The patch as discussed IIRC, would make the rules automatically. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake
Jorge Godoy wrote: > "Dawid Kuroczko" <qnex42@gmail.com> writes: > > * updatable views [ or am I missing something? ] -- it seems to me > > they were close to be completed, but I don't remember if they were > > completed and committed or not. > > Something different than rules? > (http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/rules.html) (They > exist for a while, I've just linked the latest released docs...) See http://developer.postgresql.org/index.php/Updatable_views for further wisdom. -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
On Tue, 2007-01-30 at 02:35 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > > Something different than rules? > > (http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/interactive/rules.html) (They exist for a > > while, I've just linked the latest released docs...) > > > Quite. Rules are not updateable views. Rules are a hacked up way to > create an updateable view. I wouldn't go that far. Rules can do things that updatable views can't do. Sometimes a view can't be updatable because an update to that view would be ambiguous (as far as the system knows), but you can still use the well-defined rules system to *tell* the system what you want an update to mean. Updatable views provide a subset of the functionality of rules, but they do it automatically without much effort on the part of the DBA. That's great, but it won't replace rules. Regards, Jeff Davis
On Jan 29, 11:06 pm, qne...@gmail.com ("Dawid Kuroczko") wrote: > * updatable views [ or am I missing something? ] -- it seems to me > they were close to be completed, but I don't remember if they were > completed and committed or not. > PostgreSQL has updatable views via the rules system. I use updatable views all the time in postgres.
On 30 Jan 2007 12:15:17 -0800, Karen Hill <karen_hill22@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Jan 29, 11:06 pm, qne...@gmail.com ("Dawid Kuroczko") wrote: > > * updatable views [ or am I missing something? ] -- it seems to me > > they were close to be completed, but I don't remember if they were > > completed and committed or not. > > PostgreSQL has updatable views via the rules system. I use updatable > views all the time in postgres. That is not a point really. This todo is not about implementing rule system which PostgreSQL already has. It's about implementing infrastructure to set up updatable views automatically, as the standard dictates. And this is a feaure PostgreSQL lacks. If you want updatable views you have to issue couple of CREATE RULEs apart from CREATE VIEW. The point is that you could create updatable views with sole CREATE VIEW command. Another example is table partitioning which PostgreSQL has and doesn't have. You can set up table partitioning with clever set of triggers and table inheritance, but it lacks explicit DDLs to do so. Regards, Dawid
Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com> writes: > Updatable views provide a subset of the functionality of rules, but they > do it automatically without much effort on the part of the DBA. That's > great, but it won't replace rules. Exactly --- but there is also a place for a low-effort, "do the right thing" feature, which is pretty much what the SQL spec's concept of updatable views is. There's also some question about whether our current definition of rules can even support a non-surprising implementation of an updatable view. The issue of multiple evaluation of what might be volatile expressions keeps coming up... regards, tom lane
On 30 Jan 2007 12:15:17 -0800, "Karen Hill" <karen_hill22@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Jan 29, 11:06 pm, qne...@gmail.com ("Dawid Kuroczko") wrote: > >> * updatable views [ or am I missing something? ] -- it seems to me >> they were close to be completed, but I don't remember if they were >> completed and committed or not. >> > > PostgreSQL has updatable views via the rules system. I use updatable > views all the time in postgres. > > The point is that you can't do things with the rule system reliable the SQL standard tells us to do. The CHECK OPTION is an example, this can't be modeled using rules only. Bernd