Thread: Re: Views, views, views: Summary of Arguments

> FWIW, I don't see the issue as "internal vs external" at all.  What's
> bothering me is whether these views can be considered sufficiently
> more stable and better designed than the physical system catalogs
> to justify recommending that application designers should rely on
> the views instead of the catalogs.  That point doesn't seem to me
> to have been proven.  The recent arguments in favor seem to boil down
to
> "novices will find these easier to use", which is very possibly true,
> but novices don't have the same needs as programs.

Argument 2: they can be dropped or modified.  A few weeks ago I was
complaining about non-priv users being able to see all my source code in
pg_proc.  Problem solved.  Now I can totally shut down pgAdmin for a
class of users if I desire (and I do).

Argument 3: backwards compatibility.  Do you remember how tablespaces
introduction broke pgAdmin?

Merlin

"Merlin Moncure" <merlin.moncure@rcsonline.com> writes:
> Argument 3: backwards compatibility.  Do you remember how tablespaces
> introduction broke pgAdmin?

This argument, at least, is bogus.  See my original comments to Josh:
it is not credible that these views will be significantly more stable
than the underlying catalogs.  We don't change the catalogs on whims;
we change them because we have to in order to make some significant
improvement in functionality.  For instance, if this nested-schema
idea goes in, the proposed views will have to change, or else become
useless for most of the purposes they are being touted for.
        regards, tom lane