On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 10:26:22PM -0700, David G. Johnston wrote:
On Saturday, July 11, 2020, Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
"David G. Johnston" <david.g.johns...@gmail.com> writes:
> On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 5:47 PM Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>> It seems like a lot of the disagreement here is focused on Peter's
>> proposal to make hash_mem_multiplier default to 2.0. But it doesn't
>> seem to me that that's a critical element of the proposal. Why not just
>> make it default to 1.0, thus keeping the default behavior identical
>> to what it is now?
> If we don't default it to something other than 1.0 we might as well just
> make it memory units and let people decide precisely what they want to
use
> instead of adding the complexity of a multiplier.
Not sure how that follows? The advantage of a multiplier is that it
tracks whatever people might do to work_mem automatically.
I was thinking that setting -1 would basically do that.
I think Tom meant that the multiplier would automatically track any
changes to work_mem, and adjust the hash_mem accordingly. With -1 (and
the GUC in units) you could only keep it exactly equal to work_mem, but
then as soon as you change it you'd have to update both.
In general
I'd view work_mem as the base value that people twiddle to control
executor memory consumption. Having to also twiddle this other value
doesn't seem especially user-friendly.
I’ll admit I don’t have a feel for what is or is not user-friendly when
setting these GUCs in a session to override the global defaults. But as
far as the global defaults I say it’s a wash between (32mb, -1) -> (32mb,
48mb) and (32mb, 1.0) -> (32mb, 1.5)
If you want 96mb for the session/query hash setting it to 96mb is
invariant, whilesetting it to 3.0 means it can change in the future if the
system work_mem changes. Knowing the multiplier is 1.5 and choosing 64mb
for work_mem in the session is possible but also mutable and has
side-effects. If the user is going to set both values to make it invariant
we are back to it being a wash.
I don’t believe using a multiplier will promote better comprehension for
why this setting exists compared to “-1 means use work_mem but you can
override a subset if you want.”
Is having a session level memory setting be mutable something we want to
introduce?
Is it more user-friendly?
I still think it should be in simple units, TBH. We already have
somewhat similar situation with cost parameters, where we often say that
seq_page_cost = 1.0 is the baseline for the other cost parameters, yet
we have not coded that as multipliers.
If we find that's a poor default, we can always change it later;
>> but it seems to me that the evidence for a higher default is
>> a bit thin at this point.
> So "your default is 1.0 unless you installed the new database on or after
> 13.4 in which case it's 2.0"?
What else would be new? See e.g. 848ae330a. (Note I'm not suggesting
that we'd change it in a minor release.)
Minor release update is what I had thought, and to an extent was making
possible by not using the multiplier upfront.
I agree options are wide open come v14 and beyond.
David J.
regards
--
Tomas Vondra http://www.2ndQuadrant.com
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services
