Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-08-14 Thread Martijn van Oosterhout
On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 11:56:32AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
 Martijn van Oosterhout kleptog@svana.org writes:
  About the only thing in the backend I found interesting was this:
  src/backend/utils/hash/dynahash.c function hash_create
 
 I wonder if we shouldn't just remove the hash_destroy calls in
 hash_create's failure paths.  hash_destroy is explicitly not gonna
 work on a shared-memory hashtable, and in all other cases I'd expect
 that any already-allocated table structure will be in a palloc context
 that will get cleaned up during error recovery.

[re: failure to create hash in shared memory causes crash]

Any thoughts on this? Make it a TODO item, document it, or simply
ignore it?

Have a nicy day,
-- 
Martijn van Oosterhout   kleptog@svana.org   http://svana.org/kleptog/
 From each according to his ability. To each according to his ability to 
 litigate.


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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-08-14 Thread Tom Lane
Martijn van Oosterhout kleptog@svana.org writes:
 On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 11:56:32AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
 I wonder if we shouldn't just remove the hash_destroy calls in
 hash_create's failure paths.  hash_destroy is explicitly not gonna
 work on a shared-memory hashtable, and in all other cases I'd expect
 that any already-allocated table structure will be in a palloc context
 that will get cleaned up during error recovery.

 Any thoughts on this? Make it a TODO item, document it, or simply
 ignore it?

It's like a two-line patch, so hardly worth putting in TODO ... might
as well just do it.  IIRC the motivation is mostly to silence a
Coverity warning?

regards, tom lane

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-08-14 Thread Martijn van Oosterhout
On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 08:09:36AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
  Any thoughts on this? Make it a TODO item, document it, or simply
  ignore it?
 
 It's like a two-line patch, so hardly worth putting in TODO ... might
 as well just do it.  IIRC the motivation is mostly to silence a
 Coverity warning?

Well sort of. I can also just tick a box and the warning goes away too.
It just seemed from the discussion that it was something people were
going to fix...

Have a nice day,
-- 
Martijn van Oosterhout   kleptog@svana.org   http://svana.org/kleptog/
 From each according to his ability. To each according to his ability to 
 litigate.


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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-08-14 Thread Tom Lane
Martijn van Oosterhout kleptog@svana.org writes:
 On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 08:09:36AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
 It's like a two-line patch, so hardly worth putting in TODO ... might
 as well just do it.  IIRC the motivation is mostly to silence a
 Coverity warning?

 Well sort of. I can also just tick a box and the warning goes away too.
 It just seemed from the discussion that it was something people were
 going to fix...

Done now --- I have to admit I'd forgotten about it.

regards, tom lane

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-05-02 Thread Nikolay Samokhvalov

Proposal: XMLType for PostgreSQL.

*** Minimum: ***
to have special type support for storing XML data and working with it.
This means following:
- ability to define any column of a table as of XMLType; internally,
all data is stored as VARCHAR;
- auto validation of documents against XML schema, if it was
specified in column
definition or in XML data sheets themselves (DTD, XSD or at least one
of them) /*contrib/xml2 has such feature, but it uses libxml, what
means DOM interface. Maybe it's better to use some SAX parser to solve
this task*/;
- XPath indexes for queries with path expressions in WHERE clause /*I
suppose this kind of indexes would be most frequently used. I propose
using good labeling schema and GIST and/or Gin here*/;
- some subset of SQL/XML. Actually, part 14 of SQL:200n (SQL/XML) has
more than 400 pages now and contains some established constructions,
that are using in other DBMSes. There is the some patch already
written by Pavel Stehule:
http://www.pgsql.ru/db/mw/msg.html?mid=2096818. (BTW, what is with it?
it was kept for 8.2, so what is the result?) I've tested it several
months ago, basic SQL/XML functions worked fine. It changes grammar,
but there is no other way... So, using this patch as a part of this
project means that this project cannot be contrib module,
unfortunately. Nevertheless, current paper of SQL/XML standard seems
to be mature - so, compared with existing implementation it would be a
nice 'landmark';
- XML domains support: ability to define domain based on XMLType and
XML schema definition (e.g., external DTD file or smth). I'd consider
XML schema definition as a restriction of entire XML Type (similar to
restrictions for plain types, which are defined as CHECK constraint in
domain definition)

*** Maximum: ***
- all things from 'minimum' list :-)
- reach index system:
 * structure index (labeling schema; prefix schemas seem to be best
for this and I
suppose GIST would help here). Actually, it would be full shredding,
like primary index for XML in MS SQL Server, but I'm aware of better
labeling algorithms than simple prefix labeling (as in SQL Server).
Surely, GIST/Gin support would be great foundation for these
 * flexible support of path indexes, value indexes and so on (smth
like secondary XML  indexes in SQL Server...) - as a continuation of
work on path indexes from 'minimum' list;
- full-text search abilties (tsearch2 / GIST);
- different encoding issues (auto conversion to column's encoding, etc);
- ability to choose storage type: VARCHAR or 'native' (trees - like
in native XML DBMSes and DB2 Viper [if their articles don't lie ;-)])
mode. Actually, this is very-very huge task (almost so as creating
DBMS from scratch) and I inderstand clearly that I won't solve it
using only my own abilities. But the work on 'minimum' list
(especially if it will be a part of SoC) would be a good start point
and may involve some other developers that help to implement it. Maybe
at the initial stage, it's worth to integrate with some other DBMS and
work with it using two-phase commit (surely, this is not a clue to all
problems, as it
means two different execution plans, etc);
- XQuery and its integration with SQL (according SQL/XML standard).
In other words,  implementation of XQuery Data Model - this would be
great target point (version 1.0 of entire  project);
- XML views / updatable XML views (actually, it's a crazy idea, but
it's my dream ;-) )

As a part of SoC I would concentrate on tasks from 'minimum' list. It
would be a good start point.

Some articles:
Fresh draft of SQL:200n: http://www.wiscorp.com/sql_2003_standard.zip
Other SQL/XML papers: http://www.wiscorp.com/SQLStandards.html#xsqlstandards
XISS system (Li, Moon - advanced interval indexes):
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/xiss/
MASS (prefix indexes):
http://davis.wpi.edu/dsrg/vamana/WebPages/Publication.html
Staircase joins (accelerating XPath Evaluation):
http://www.inf.uni-konstanz.de/dbis/publications/download/injection.pdf
Oleg's TODO list: http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/oddmuse/index.cgi/todo
XML in DB2 Viper: http://www.vldb2005.org/program/paper/thu/p1164-nicola.pdf
XQuery in SQL Server: http://www.vldb2005.org/program/paper/thu/p1175-pal.pdf
Labeling schema in SQL Server (ORDPATHs):
http://portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1007686type=pdfcoll=GUIDEdl=GUIDECFID=74920272CFTOKEN=73736781

One more comment: I'm a PhD student of MIPT, Russia. I plan to create
an overview of XMLType implementations of last versions of three major
commercial DBMSes (ORA, MS, DB2), comparing them to standard and each
other. First article of this comparison is planned to the end of May.
This work will help to understand, where major commercial DBMS vendors
go and why they go there :-) Moreover, I intend to create a technique
for testing of XMLType support in (O)RDBMSes. In spite of the fact,
that SoC assumes all work be done by only one person, I expect some 
upport/help from following people:

- Dr. Sergey Kuznetsov (my scientific 

Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-05-02 Thread Jonah H. Harris

You need to submit this through Google.

Student FAQ:
http://code.google.com/soc/studentfaq.html

Student Sign-up:
http://code.google.com/soc/student_step1.html

On 5/2/06, Nikolay Samokhvalov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Proposal: XMLType for PostgreSQL.

*** Minimum: ***
to have special type support for storing XML data and working with it.
This means following:
 - ability to define any column of a table as of XMLType; internally,
all data is stored as VARCHAR;
 - auto validation of documents against XML schema, if it was
specified in column
definition or in XML data sheets themselves (DTD, XSD or at least one
of them) /*contrib/xml2 has such feature, but it uses libxml, what
means DOM interface. Maybe it's better to use some SAX parser to solve
this task*/;
 - XPath indexes for queries with path expressions in WHERE clause /*I
suppose this kind of indexes would be most frequently used. I propose
using good labeling schema and GIST and/or Gin here*/;
 - some subset of SQL/XML. Actually, part 14 of SQL:200n (SQL/XML) has
more than 400 pages now and contains some established constructions,
that are using in other DBMSes. There is the some patch already
written by Pavel Stehule:
http://www.pgsql.ru/db/mw/msg.html?mid=2096818. (BTW, what is with it?
it was kept for 8.2, so what is the result?) I've tested it several
months ago, basic SQL/XML functions worked fine. It changes grammar,
but there is no other way... So, using this patch as a part of this
project means that this project cannot be contrib module,
unfortunately. Nevertheless, current paper of SQL/XML standard seems
to be mature - so, compared with existing implementation it would be a
nice 'landmark';
 - XML domains support: ability to define domain based on XMLType and
XML schema definition (e.g., external DTD file or smth). I'd consider
XML schema definition as a restriction of entire XML Type (similar to
restrictions for plain types, which are defined as CHECK constraint in
domain definition)

*** Maximum: ***
 - all things from 'minimum' list :-)
 - reach index system:
  * structure index (labeling schema; prefix schemas seem to be best
for this and I
suppose GIST would help here). Actually, it would be full shredding,
like primary index for XML in MS SQL Server, but I'm aware of better
labeling algorithms than simple prefix labeling (as in SQL Server).
Surely, GIST/Gin support would be great foundation for these
  * flexible support of path indexes, value indexes and so on (smth
like secondary XML  indexes in SQL Server...) - as a continuation of
work on path indexes from 'minimum' list;
 - full-text search abilties (tsearch2 / GIST);
 - different encoding issues (auto conversion to column's encoding, etc);
 - ability to choose storage type: VARCHAR or 'native' (trees - like
in native XML DBMSes and DB2 Viper [if their articles don't lie ;-)])
mode. Actually, this is very-very huge task (almost so as creating
DBMS from scratch) and I inderstand clearly that I won't solve it
using only my own abilities. But the work on 'minimum' list
(especially if it will be a part of SoC) would be a good start point
and may involve some other developers that help to implement it. Maybe
at the initial stage, it's worth to integrate with some other DBMS and
work with it using two-phase commit (surely, this is not a clue to all
problems, as it
means two different execution plans, etc);
 - XQuery and its integration with SQL (according SQL/XML standard).
In other words,  implementation of XQuery Data Model - this would be
great target point (version 1.0 of entire  project);
 - XML views / updatable XML views (actually, it's a crazy idea, but
it's my dream ;-) )

As a part of SoC I would concentrate on tasks from 'minimum' list. It
would be a good start point.

Some articles:
Fresh draft of SQL:200n: http://www.wiscorp.com/sql_2003_standard.zip
Other SQL/XML papers: http://www.wiscorp.com/SQLStandards.html#xsqlstandards
XISS system (Li, Moon - advanced interval indexes):
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/xiss/
MASS (prefix indexes):
http://davis.wpi.edu/dsrg/vamana/WebPages/Publication.html
Staircase joins (accelerating XPath Evaluation):
http://www.inf.uni-konstanz.de/dbis/publications/download/injection.pdf
Oleg's TODO list: http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/oddmuse/index.cgi/todo
XML in DB2 Viper: http://www.vldb2005.org/program/paper/thu/p1164-nicola.pdf
XQuery in SQL Server: http://www.vldb2005.org/program/paper/thu/p1175-pal.pdf
Labeling schema in SQL Server (ORDPATHs):
http://portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1007686type=pdfcoll=GUIDEdl=GUIDECFID=74920272CFTOKEN=73736781

One more comment: I'm a PhD student of MIPT, Russia. I plan to create
an overview of XMLType implementations of last versions of three major
commercial DBMSes (ORA, MS, DB2), comparing them to standard and each
other. First article of this comparison is planned to the end of May.
This work will help to understand, where major commercial DBMS vendors
go and why they go there :-) Moreover, I intend to 

Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-25 Thread Andrew Dunstan

Jim C. Nasby wrote:


On Mon, Apr 24, 2006 at 11:05:18PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
 


Jonah H. Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
   


While the student could do some benchmarking on relatively new
hardware and make suggestions, I agree with Tom.  Having to keep
support for older platforms doesn't leave much flexibility to change
the defaults.
 


Another point here is that the defaults *are* reasonable for development
and for small installations; the people who are complaining are the ones
who expect to run terabyte databases without any tuning.  (I exaggerate
perhaps, but the point is valid.)

We've talked more than once about offering multiple alternative
starting-point postgresql.conf files to give people an idea of what to
do for small/medium/large installations.  MySQL have done that for years
and it doesn't seem that users are unable to cope with the concept.
But doing this is (a) mostly a matter of testing and documenting, not
coding and (b) probably too small for a SoC project anyway.
   



My recollection was that there was opposition to offering multiple
config files, but that there was a proposal to make initdb smarter about
picking configuration values.

Personally, I agree that multiple config files would be fine. Or a
really fancy solution would be feeding a config option to initdb and
have it generate an appropriate postgresql.conf.
 




We have already done some initdb tuning improvements for 8.2 - shared 
buffers now tops out at 4000 instead of 1000 and initdb now sets 
max_fsm_pages at a more realistic level. (top is 200,000 instead of 
previously hardcoded 20,000).


I would have liked to increase max_connections too, but that would have 
caused problems on OSX, apparently. See previous discussion.


Personally I would much rather see a tuning advisor tool in more general 
use than just provide small/medium/large config setting files.



cheers

andrew


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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-25 Thread Tom Lane
Jonah H. Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On 4/25/06, Andrew Dunstan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Personally I would much rather see a tuning advisor tool in more general
 use than just provide small/medium/large config setting files.

 True dat.

One thing that has to be figured out before we can go far with this
is the whole question of how much smarts initdb really ought to have.
Since a lot of packagers think that initdb should be run
non-interactively behind the scenes, the obvious solution of give
initdb a --small/--medium/--large parameter does not work all that
nicely.  But on the other hand we can't just tell people to drop in
replacement config files when the one in place contains initdb-created
specifics, such as locale settings.

Now that there's a provision for include directives in
postgresql.conf, one way to address this would be to split the
config info into multiple physical files, some containing purely
performance-related settings while others consider functionality.
But that seems more like a wart than a solution to me.  I feel that
we've pushed performance-tuning logic into initdb that probably ought
not be there, and we ought to factor it out again.

regards, tom lane

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-25 Thread ipig
Maybe you can develop a graphic interface just like Fedora Core setup interface 
which can choose packages installing, then the user can choose config file and 
then have a little change in parameters.
 
- Original Message - 
From: Tom Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Jonah H. Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: Andrew Dunstan [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Jim C. Nasby [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 
John DeSoi [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Pgsql Hackers pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 2:16 PM
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request 


 Jonah H. Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On 4/25/06, Andrew Dunstan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Personally I would much rather see a tuning advisor tool in more general
 use than just provide small/medium/large config setting files.
 
 True dat.
 
 One thing that has to be figured out before we can go far with this
 is the whole question of how much smarts initdb really ought to have.
 Since a lot of packagers think that initdb should be run
 non-interactively behind the scenes, the obvious solution of give
 initdb a --small/--medium/--large parameter does not work all that
 nicely.  But on the other hand we can't just tell people to drop in
 replacement config files when the one in place contains initdb-created
 specifics, such as locale settings.
 
 Now that there's a provision for include directives in
 postgresql.conf, one way to address this would be to split the
 config info into multiple physical files, some containing purely
 performance-related settings while others consider functionality.
 But that seems more like a wart than a solution to me.  I feel that
 we've pushed performance-tuning logic into initdb that probably ought
 not be there, and we ought to factor it out again.
 
 regards, tom lane
 
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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-25 Thread Bort, Paul
  Personally I would much rather see a tuning advisor tool in 
 more general
  use than just provide small/medium/large config setting files.
 
 True dat.

Maybe the SoC project here is just such a tuning advisor tool? Something
that can run pgbench repeatedly, try different settings, and compare
results.


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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-25 Thread Jonah H. Harris
On 4/25/06, Bort, Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Maybe the SoC project here is just such a tuning advisor tool? Something
 that can run pgbench repeatedly, try different settings, and compare
 results.

IIRC, that already exists.  I think it was called pg_autotune or
something similar.


--
Jonah H. Harris, Database Internals Architect
EnterpriseDB Corporation
732.331.1324

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-25 Thread Bruce Momjian
Tom Lane wrote:
 Jonah H. Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
  On 4/25/06, Andrew Dunstan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Personally I would much rather see a tuning advisor tool in more general
  use than just provide small/medium/large config setting files.
 
  True dat.
 
 One thing that has to be figured out before we can go far with this
 is the whole question of how much smarts initdb really ought to have.
 Since a lot of packagers think that initdb should be run
 non-interactively behind the scenes, the obvious solution of give
 initdb a --small/--medium/--large parameter does not work all that
 nicely.  But on the other hand we can't just tell people to drop in
 replacement config files when the one in place contains initdb-created
 specifics, such as locale settings.
 
 Now that there's a provision for include directives in
 postgresql.conf, one way to address this would be to split the
 config info into multiple physical files, some containing purely
 performance-related settings while others consider functionality.
 But that seems more like a wart than a solution to me.  I feel that
 we've pushed performance-tuning logic into initdb that probably ought
 not be there, and we ought to factor it out again.

Sounds good. I don't care what we do for 8.2, but we should do
something.

Or am I going to have to bring out my dancing elephant again?  :-)

http://www.janetskiles.com/ART/greeting/greet-ani/dancing-elephant.jpg


-- 
  Bruce Momjian   http://candle.pha.pa.us
  EnterpriseDBhttp://www.enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-25 Thread Jim C. Nasby
On Tue, Apr 25, 2006 at 08:39:57AM -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
 On 4/25/06, Bort, Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Maybe the SoC project here is just such a tuning advisor tool? Something
  that can run pgbench repeatedly, try different settings, and compare
  results.
 
 IIRC, that already exists.  I think it was called pg_autotune or
 something similar.

Last time I tried autotune I couldn't get it to work on FreeBSD, and it
tuned a minimum of parameters. For example, it didn't touch
checkpoint_segments, which is pretty essential to tune on a higher-end
server.

Not saying it wouldn't be a good place to start, but I also don't think
it's a replacement for a built-in tuning tool.
-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pervasive Software  http://pervasive.comwork: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf   cell: 512-569-9461

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-24 Thread Jim C. Nasby
Where do we stand with getting much more reasonable default values in
postgresql.conf? Maybe that should be a SoC project, or is it too small?
-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pervasive Software  http://pervasive.comwork: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf   cell: 512-569-9461

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-24 Thread Tom Lane
Jim C. Nasby [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 Where do we stand with getting much more reasonable default values in
 postgresql.conf? Maybe that should be a SoC project, or is it too small?

Define much more reasonable.

I doubt this is SoC material, simply because the issues have little to
do with coding and a lot to do with persuading people to drop default
support for old platforms.  Which is not something a student is likely
to succeed at.

regards, tom lane

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-24 Thread Jonah H. Harris
On 4/24/06, Tom Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I doubt this is SoC material, simply because the issues have little to
 do with coding and a lot to do with persuading people to drop default
 support for old platforms.  Which is not something a student is likely
 to succeed at.

While the student could do some benchmarking on relatively new
hardware and make suggestions, I agree with Tom.  Having to keep
support for older platforms doesn't leave much flexibility to change
the defaults.

I just don't see enough work here to warrant a SoC project.

--
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EnterpriseDB Corporation
732.331.1324

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-24 Thread Tom Lane
Jonah H. Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 While the student could do some benchmarking on relatively new
 hardware and make suggestions, I agree with Tom.  Having to keep
 support for older platforms doesn't leave much flexibility to change
 the defaults.

Another point here is that the defaults *are* reasonable for development
and for small installations; the people who are complaining are the ones
who expect to run terabyte databases without any tuning.  (I exaggerate
perhaps, but the point is valid.)

We've talked more than once about offering multiple alternative
starting-point postgresql.conf files to give people an idea of what to
do for small/medium/large installations.  MySQL have done that for years
and it doesn't seem that users are unable to cope with the concept.
But doing this is (a) mostly a matter of testing and documenting, not
coding and (b) probably too small for a SoC project anyway.

regards, tom lane

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-24 Thread Jonah H. Harris
On 4/24/06, Tom Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 We've talked more than once about offering multiple alternative
 starting-point postgresql.conf files to give people an idea of what to
 do for small/medium/large installations.  MySQL have done that for years
 and it doesn't seem that users are unable to cope with the concept.
 But doing this is (a) mostly a matter of testing and documenting, not
 coding and (b) probably too small for a SoC project anyway.

Yeah, it would be nice to offer a small/med/large config file, but
there are also other considerations that affect PostgreSQL and not
MySQL.  An example is the system-wide shared memory maximum... RedHat
defaults to 32M, SuSE to 32M?, and OSX to 4M (or something crazy like
that).  So even if we give out a med/large config file, they won't
work for most people who have default Linux installs.  Tuning
PostgreSQL isn't all that hard, but it may be nice to give people a
starting point.

I don't know, I'm not averse to adding something like the following to
the SoC ideas:

Benchmark PostgreSQL and analyze results to build optimal default
configuration files for medium and large-scale systems.

Of course, the definition of medium and large vary, as does the
application (OLTP, DSS, etc.); so we'd have to define them.

Thoughts?


--
Jonah H. Harris, Database Internals Architect
EnterpriseDB Corporation
732.331.1324

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-24 Thread Jim C. Nasby
On Mon, Apr 24, 2006 at 11:05:18PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
 Jonah H. Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
  While the student could do some benchmarking on relatively new
  hardware and make suggestions, I agree with Tom.  Having to keep
  support for older platforms doesn't leave much flexibility to change
  the defaults.
 
 Another point here is that the defaults *are* reasonable for development
 and for small installations; the people who are complaining are the ones
 who expect to run terabyte databases without any tuning.  (I exaggerate
 perhaps, but the point is valid.)
 
 We've talked more than once about offering multiple alternative
 starting-point postgresql.conf files to give people an idea of what to
 do for small/medium/large installations.  MySQL have done that for years
 and it doesn't seem that users are unable to cope with the concept.
 But doing this is (a) mostly a matter of testing and documenting, not
 coding and (b) probably too small for a SoC project anyway.

My recollection was that there was opposition to offering multiple
config files, but that there was a proposal to make initdb smarter about
picking configuration values.

Personally, I agree that multiple config files would be fine. Or a
really fancy solution would be feeding a config option to initdb and
have it generate an appropriate postgresql.conf.
-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-24 Thread Jonah H. Harris
On 4/25/06, Andrew Dunstan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 We have already done some initdb tuning improvements for 8.2

Cool, I hadn't looked at this.

 I would have liked to increase max_connections too, but that would have
 caused problems on OSX, apparently. See previous discussion.

Yeah, their defaults really suck.

 Personally I would much rather see a tuning advisor tool in more general
 use than just provide small/medium/large config setting files.

True dat.

--
Jonah H. Harris, Database Internals Architect
EnterpriseDB Corporation
732.331.1324

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-23 Thread Alvaro Herrera
I hope I'm not too late.

Jonah H. Harris wrote:
 On 4/19/06, John DeSoi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Alvaro indicated he would be willing to provide direction on this
  with testing support from me. He also said there are several other
  possible PL/PHP issues that would warrant a SoC project.
 
 Cool... let's get 'em all listed here so we can move forward.

The following is all PL/php related, in no particular order:

1. Add support for IN/OUT parameters, and named parameters.  This should
be easy to do, the majority of needed infraestructure in PL/php is there
already.  It only needs a bit more love.

2. Clean up memory usage.  Both compilation and execution of a function
should happen on separate, maybe temporary, memory contexts; and provide
adequate cleanup for both (for example when a function is recompiled).

3. Enable it to build separate from the Apache SAPI.

4. Allow huge resultsets to be processed by providing an option to
transparently use a cursor to fetch results partially, when spi_exec()
is called.

5. Clean up the plphp_proc_desc struct.  This involves making sure we
store all the info we need to know about a function; no more, no less.
(I think currently we store things we don't need, and we don't store
some things it would be useful to know).


I don't think any of these would warrant a SoC by itself.  Maybe the
whole bunch could, however.

-- 
Alvaro Herrerahttp://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-23 Thread Jonah H. Harris
Cool... will get them added.

On 4/23/06, Alvaro Herrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I hope I'm not too late.

 Jonah H. Harris wrote:
  On 4/19/06, John DeSoi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   Alvaro indicated he would be willing to provide direction on this
   with testing support from me. He also said there are several other
   possible PL/PHP issues that would warrant a SoC project.
 
  Cool... let's get 'em all listed here so we can move forward.

 The following is all PL/php related, in no particular order:

 1. Add support for IN/OUT parameters, and named parameters.  This should
 be easy to do, the majority of needed infraestructure in PL/php is there
 already.  It only needs a bit more love.

 2. Clean up memory usage.  Both compilation and execution of a function
 should happen on separate, maybe temporary, memory contexts; and provide
 adequate cleanup for both (for example when a function is recompiled).

 3. Enable it to build separate from the Apache SAPI.

 4. Allow huge resultsets to be processed by providing an option to
 transparently use a cursor to fetch results partially, when spi_exec()
 is called.

 5. Clean up the plphp_proc_desc struct.  This involves making sure we
 store all the info we need to know about a function; no more, no less.
 (I think currently we store things we don't need, and we don't store
 some things it would be useful to know).


 I don't think any of these would warrant a SoC by itself.  Maybe the
 whole bunch could, however.

 --
 Alvaro Herrerahttp://www.CommandPrompt.com/
 The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-21 Thread Andreas Pflug

Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
I think Martin Oosterhout's nearby email on coverity bug reports might 
make a good SoC project, but should it also be added to the TODO list? 



I may as well put up phpPgAdmin for it.  We have plenty of projects 
available in phpPgAdmin...


Same with pgAdmin3.

Regards,
Andreas

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-21 Thread Jim C. Nasby
On Fri, Apr 21, 2006 at 10:27:48AM +0200, Andreas Pflug wrote:
 Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
 I think Martin Oosterhout's nearby email on coverity bug reports might 
 make a good SoC project, but should it also be added to the TODO list? 
 
 
 I may as well put up phpPgAdmin for it.  We have plenty of projects 
 available in phpPgAdmin...
 
 Same with pgAdmin3.

Is there a list of specific projects? I'm pretty sure we can't just say
work on (pgp)PgAdmin...
-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pervasive Software  http://pervasive.comwork: 512-231-6117
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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-21 Thread Jonah H. Harris
Robert and I are working on updating it ASAP.

On 4/21/06, Jim C. Nasby [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Fri, Apr 21, 2006 at 10:27:48AM +0200, Andreas Pflug wrote:
  Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
  I think Martin Oosterhout's nearby email on coverity bug reports might
  make a good SoC project, but should it also be added to the TODO list?
  
  
  I may as well put up phpPgAdmin for it.  We have plenty of projects
  available in phpPgAdmin...
 
  Same with pgAdmin3.

 Is there a list of specific projects? I'm pretty sure we can't just say
 work on (pgp)PgAdmin...
 --
 Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Pervasive Software  http://pervasive.comwork: 512-231-6117
 vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf   cell: 512-569-9461



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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-21 Thread Robert Treat
On Friday 21 April 2006 14:11, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
 On Fri, Apr 21, 2006 at 10:27:48AM +0200, Andreas Pflug wrote:
  Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
  I think Martin Oosterhout's nearby email on coverity bug reports might
  make a good SoC project, but should it also be added to the TODO list?
  
  I may as well put up phpPgAdmin for it.  We have plenty of projects
  available in phpPgAdmin...
 
  Same with pgAdmin3.

 Is there a list of specific projects? I'm pretty sure we can't just say
 work on (pgp)PgAdmin...

http://www.postgresql.org/developer/summerofcode

-- 
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-21 Thread Jim C. Nasby
On Fri, Apr 21, 2006 at 05:48:33PM -0400, Robert Treat wrote:
 On Friday 21 April 2006 14:11, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
  On Fri, Apr 21, 2006 at 10:27:48AM +0200, Andreas Pflug wrote:
   Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
   I think Martin Oosterhout's nearby email on coverity bug reports might
   make a good SoC project, but should it also be added to the TODO list?
   
   I may as well put up phpPgAdmin for it.  We have plenty of projects
   available in phpPgAdmin...
  
   Same with pgAdmin3.
 
  Is there a list of specific projects? I'm pretty sure we can't just say
  work on (pgp)PgAdmin...
 
 http://www.postgresql.org/developer/summerofcode

Want to replace

listrongMany TODO Items/strongA number of the items on our TODO
list have been marked as good projects for beginners whos are new to the
PostgreSQL code. Items on this list have the advantage of already having
general community agreement that the feature is desireable. These items
should also have some general discussion available in the mailing list
archives to help get you started. You can find these items on the a
href=http://wwwmaster.postgresql.org/docs/faqs.TODO.html;TODO/a
list, they will be marked with apercent sign (%).
/li

with

listrongMany TODO Items/strong: A number of the items on our TODO
list have been marked as good projects for beginners who are new to the
PostgreSQL code. Items on this list have the advantage of already having
general community agreement that the feature is desireable. These items
should also have some general discussion available in the mailing list
archives to help get you started. You can find these items on the a
href=http://wwwmaster.postgresql.org/docs/faqs.TODO.html;TODO/a
list, they will be marked with apercent sign (%).
/li

?
-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pervasive Software  http://pervasive.comwork: 512-231-6117
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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-21 Thread Andreas Pflug

Jim C. Nasby wrote:


Same with pgAdmin3.



Is there a list of specific projects? I'm pretty sure we can't just say
work on (pgp)PgAdmin...
  


Our TODO list has some.

Regards,
Andreas



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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-20 Thread Robert Treat
On Wednesday 19 April 2006 12:09, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
 On 4/19/06, John DeSoi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Alvaro indicated he would be willing to provide direction on this
  with testing support from me. He also said there are several other
  possible PL/PHP issues that would warrant a SoC project.

 Cool... let's get 'em all listed here so we can move forward.


I think Martin Oosterhout's nearby email on coverity bug reports might make a 
good SoC project, but should it also be added to the TODO list? 

-- 
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-20 Thread Martijn van Oosterhout
On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 08:51:25AM -0400, Robert Treat wrote:
 On Wednesday 19 April 2006 12:09, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
  On 4/19/06, John DeSoi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   Alvaro indicated he would be willing to provide direction on this
   with testing support from me. He also said there are several other
   possible PL/PHP issues that would warrant a SoC project.
 
  Cool... let's get 'em all listed here so we can move forward.
 
 
 I think Martin Oosterhout's nearby email on coverity bug reports might make a 
 good SoC project, but should it also be added to the TODO list? 

Nice idea, though it would be much more useful if the reports could be
exported en-masse. There's an export function but it only exports the
user comments, not the error itself. So unless people signup there's no
easy way to get the info to people. :(

In any case, after you weed out the false-positives and exclude ECPG
you're only talking about less than 50 issues that may need to be
addressed. Hardly a project that will take any amount of time.

Have a nice day,
-- 
Martijn van Oosterhout   kleptog@svana.org   http://svana.org/kleptog/
 From each according to his ability. To each according to his ability to 
 litigate.


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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-20 Thread Tom Lane
Martijn van Oosterhout kleptog@svana.org writes:
 On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 08:51:25AM -0400, Robert Treat wrote:
 I think Martin Oosterhout's nearby email on coverity bug reports might make a
 good SoC project, but should it also be added to the TODO list?
 ...
 In any case, after you weed out the false-positives and exclude ECPG
 you're only talking about less than 50 issues that may need to be
 addressed. Hardly a project that will take any amount of time.

Nor one we'd be willing to wait till the summer to address, if any of
the bugs are real.

regards, tom lane

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-20 Thread Martijn van Oosterhout
On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 11:04:31AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
 Martijn van Oosterhout kleptog@svana.org writes:
  On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 08:51:25AM -0400, Robert Treat wrote:
  I think Martin Oosterhout's nearby email on coverity bug reports might 
  make a
  good SoC project, but should it also be added to the TODO list?
  ...
  In any case, after you weed out the false-positives and exclude ECPG
  you're only talking about less than 50 issues that may need to be
  addressed. Hardly a project that will take any amount of time.
 
 Nor one we'd be willing to wait till the summer to address, if any of
 the bugs are real.

Most of the stuff remaining is memory leaks in the src/bin directories,
and ECPG. The memory leaks are not important there (initdb leaks like a
sieve in many places).

About the only thing in the backend I found interesting was this:

src/backend/utils/hash/dynahash.c function hash_create

The numbers are line numbers. Somewhat squished version, hope I didn't
miss anything.

185  if( flags  HASH_SHARED_MEM) {
193  hashp-hcxt = NULL;
197  if (flags  HASH_ATTACH)
198  return hashp;
199  }
256  if (!init_htab(hashp, nelem))
257  {
258  hash_destroy(hashp);

hash_destroy dereferences hashp-hcxt. I don't see anything in
init_htab that special-cases shared memory hashes. The only way this
could be avoided is if HASH_SHARED_MEM was always combined with
HASH_ATTACH. But if so, why the test?

The only other thing we could do, if we were prepare to annotate the
source, is maybe teach it about our locking stuff and have it check
that. But I don't think that's suitable for mainline, more someone's
private tree...

Have a nice day,
-- 
Martijn van Oosterhout   kleptog@svana.org   http://svana.org/kleptog/
 From each according to his ability. To each according to his ability to 
 litigate.


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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-20 Thread Tom Lane
Martijn van Oosterhout kleptog@svana.org writes:
 About the only thing in the backend I found interesting was this:
 src/backend/utils/hash/dynahash.c function hash_create

I wonder if we shouldn't just remove the hash_destroy calls in
hash_create's failure paths.  hash_destroy is explicitly not gonna
work on a shared-memory hashtable, and in all other cases I'd expect
that any already-allocated table structure will be in a palloc context
that will get cleaned up during error recovery.

regards, tom lane

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-20 Thread Jim C. Nasby
Another idea; add the ability for buildfarm machines to do a pgbench run
to stress-test the code. Such a test would probably have found the
windows pgbench issue I reported some time ago.

This would have to be optional, as not all buildfarm machines/owners
would tolerate the benchmark.
-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pervasive Software  http://pervasive.comwork: 512-231-6117
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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-20 Thread Martijn van Oosterhout
On Sat, Apr 15, 2006 at 03:05:20PM -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
 Hey everyone,
 
 I know we started a discussion a month or so ago regarding ideas for
 SoC projects.  However, after reading through the thread, I didn't see
 us nail down any actual items.

Here's an idea: Get the ECPG test programs into a state that they can
be integrated into the regression tests.

There are programs already but you can't easily run them, no schema...

Have a nice day,
-- 
Martijn van Oosterhout   kleptog@svana.org   http://svana.org/kleptog/
 From each according to his ability. To each according to his ability to 
 litigate.


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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-20 Thread Christopher Kings-Lynne
I think Martin Oosterhout's nearby email on coverity bug reports might make a 
good SoC project, but should it also be added to the TODO list? 


I may as well put up phpPgAdmin for it.  We have plenty of projects 
available in phpPgAdmin...


Chris


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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-19 Thread John DeSoi
Proposed item: Improve PL/PHP support, especially installation on non- 
Linux platforms. PL/PHP does not currently work on OS X (not sure  
about Windows, but I doubt it).


Alvaro indicated he would be willing to provide direction on this  
with testing support from me. He also said there are several other  
possible PL/PHP issues that would warrant a SoC project.





John DeSoi, Ph.D.
http://pgedit.com/
Power Tools for PostgreSQL


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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-19 Thread Jonah H. Harris
On 4/19/06, John DeSoi [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Alvaro indicated he would be willing to provide direction on this
 with testing support from me. He also said there are several other
 possible PL/PHP issues that would warrant a SoC project.

Cool... let's get 'em all listed here so we can move forward.

--
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EnterpriseDB Corporation
732.331.1324

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-19 Thread Joshua D. Drake

John DeSoi wrote:
Proposed item: Improve PL/PHP support, especially installation on 
non-Linux platforms. PL/PHP does not currently work on OS X (not sure 
about Windows, but I doubt it).


It definitely does NOT work on Windows. MacOSX is just a matter of us 
having some time.


Alvaro indicated he would be willing to provide direction on this with 
testing support from me. He also said there are several other possible 
PL/PHP issues that would warrant a SoC project.


Well my number one issue is the build process which needs to be cleaned 
up but there are other more technical issues to be resolved as well.


Joshua D. Drake






John DeSoi, Ph.D.
http://pgedit.com/
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--

   === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-19 Thread Alvaro Herrera
Joshua D. Drake wrote:
 John DeSoi wrote:
 Proposed item: Improve PL/PHP support, especially installation on 
 non-Linux platforms. PL/PHP does not currently work on OS X (not sure 
 about Windows, but I doubt it).
 
 It definitely does NOT work on Windows. MacOSX is just a matter of us 
 having some time.
 
 Alvaro indicated he would be willing to provide direction on this with 
 testing support from me. He also said there are several other possible 
 PL/PHP issues that would warrant a SoC project.
 
 Well my number one issue is the build process which needs to be cleaned 
 up but there are other more technical issues to be resolved as well.

Yeah, there are also a number of possible improvements documented as
tickets in the Trac site and others that currently exist only as very
vague noise in my head.

-- 
Alvaro Herrerahttp://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-18 Thread Mark Wong

Jim C. Nasby wrote:

On Sat, Apr 15, 2006 at 03:05:20PM -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:

All ideas welcome!


I know it's not directly PostgreSQL related, but I'd love to see the
dbt* code improved. Items on my wish-list:

- make it easy to run the test framework and clients on a seperate
  machine from the database server
- keep results in a database
- provide a front-end to allow users to schedule tests in a queue
- add support for windows, at least for the database (theoretically
  possible to run that way now, but you have to do everything by hand)

Another idea: afaik, spikesource is still offering a bounty for
improvements to OSS test suites, something that'd fit well with SoC.


I second this. :)  There are also the TPC-App (Java) fair-use 
implementation that I've started and the TPC-E (next gen OLTP) that I 
would like to start.


Mark

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-18 Thread Jim C. Nasby
On Tue, Apr 18, 2006 at 11:27:40AM -0700, Mark Wong wrote:
 Jim C. Nasby wrote:
 On Sat, Apr 15, 2006 at 03:05:20PM -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
 All ideas welcome!
 
 I know it's not directly PostgreSQL related, but I'd love to see the
 dbt* code improved. Items on my wish-list:
 
 - make it easy to run the test framework and clients on a seperate
   machine from the database server
 - keep results in a database
 - provide a front-end to allow users to schedule tests in a queue
 - add support for windows, at least for the database (theoretically
   possible to run that way now, but you have to do everything by hand)
 
 Another idea: afaik, spikesource is still offering a bounty for
 improvements to OSS test suites, something that'd fit well with SoC.
 
 I second this. :)  There are also the TPC-App (Java) fair-use 
 implementation that I've started and the TPC-E (next gen OLTP) that I 
 would like to start.

Maybe before starting on TPC-E it makes sense to try and get a common
framework for all the different tests built? AFAIK most of the
benchmarks all use a fairly standard client-server infrastructure, so we
should hopefully be able to share that between the different tests...
-- 
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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-18 Thread Jonah H. Harris
On 4/18/06, Jim C. Nasby [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Tue, Apr 18, 2006 at 11:27:40AM -0700, Mark Wong wrote:
  Jim C. Nasby wrote:
  On Sat, Apr 15, 2006 at 03:05:20PM -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
  All ideas welcome!
  
  I know it's not directly PostgreSQL related, but I'd love to see the
  dbt* code improved. Items on my wish-list:
  
  - make it easy to run the test framework and clients on a seperate
machine from the database server
  - keep results in a database
  - provide a front-end to allow users to schedule tests in a queue
  - add support for windows, at least for the database (theoretically
possible to run that way now, but you have to do everything by hand)
  
  Another idea: afaik, spikesource is still offering a bounty for
  improvements to OSS test suites, something that'd fit well with SoC.
 
  I second this. :)  There are also the TPC-App (Java) fair-use
  implementation that I've started and the TPC-E (next gen OLTP) that I
  would like to start.

 Maybe before starting on TPC-E it makes sense to try and get a common
 framework for all the different tests built? AFAIK most of the
 benchmarks all use a fairly standard client-server infrastructure, so we
 should hopefully be able to share that between the different tests...

I agree with Jim.  A framework would really help out here.  All of the
tests are basically the same and would benefit from a framework.

However, Mark, do you think Java is a reliable benchmarking platform? 
At EnterpriseDB, we've tried several Java benchmarks and could never
get as repeatable or reliable of a benchmark as DBT2 gives you.

--
Jonah H. Harris, Database Internals Architect
EnterpriseDB Corporation
732.331.1324

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-18 Thread Mark Wong

Jonah H. Harris wrote:

On 4/18/06, Jim C. Nasby [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

On Tue, Apr 18, 2006 at 11:27:40AM -0700, Mark Wong wrote:

Jim C. Nasby wrote:

On Sat, Apr 15, 2006 at 03:05:20PM -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:

All ideas welcome!

I know it's not directly PostgreSQL related, but I'd love to see the
dbt* code improved. Items on my wish-list:

- make it easy to run the test framework and clients on a seperate
 machine from the database server
- keep results in a database
- provide a front-end to allow users to schedule tests in a queue
- add support for windows, at least for the database (theoretically
 possible to run that way now, but you have to do everything by hand)

Another idea: afaik, spikesource is still offering a bounty for
improvements to OSS test suites, something that'd fit well with SoC.

I second this. :)  There are also the TPC-App (Java) fair-use
implementation that I've started and the TPC-E (next gen OLTP) that I
would like to start.

Maybe before starting on TPC-E it makes sense to try and get a common
framework for all the different tests built? AFAIK most of the
benchmarks all use a fairly standard client-server infrastructure, so we
should hopefully be able to share that between the different tests...


I agree with Jim.  A framework would really help out here.  All of the
tests are basically the same and would benefit from a framework.


This has crossed my mind before.  I haven't been able to come up with 
something that I've felt good about on my own though.


However, Mark, do you think Java is a reliable benchmarking platform? 
At EnterpriseDB, we've tried several Java benchmarks and could never

get as repeatable or reliable of a benchmark as DBT2 gives you.


I don't have much experience here yet.  I've only got a portion of the 
TPC-App implemented, although probably enough now to see how repeatable 
it is thus far.  Do you want to give my DBT4 kit a shot? :)  I'm curious 
to what platforms you've tried Java on as I've heard the Linux 
implementations aren't as good as their Windows counterparts.  I'm not 
sure how true that is today though.


Mark

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-17 Thread Ned Lilly

OpenMFG has done some work on getting PostgreSQL working with the Drupal CMS 
and the Mantis bugtracker (and also integrating those two, btw).  We're in 
contact with the respective projects about getting our patches worked in, but 
if anyone's keeping a tally, just wanted you to be aware.

Regards,
Ned


Jonah H. Harris wrote:

Hey everyone,

I know we started a discussion a month or so ago regarding ideas for
SoC projects.  However, after reading through the thread, I didn't see
us nail down any actual items.

As such, we need to quickly put together a list of oh, 15-20 midlevel
project ideas.  I'm sure we can pull some off the TODO list, but we
should also look at project ideas for porting some of the most used
third-party OSS software to PostgreSQL too (portals, CMS systems,
accounting systems, etc.).

All ideas welcome!

--
Jonah H. Harris, Database Internals Architect
EnterpriseDB Corporation
732.331.1324

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-17 Thread Stephen Frost
* Jonah H. Harris ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
 I know we started a discussion a month or so ago regarding ideas for
 SoC projects.  However, after reading through the thread, I didn't see
 us nail down any actual items.

I got an email already for a good idea, actually, which is to work on
having pg_hba.conf modifiable from SQL.  The only problem with that is
that it really needs to be done in an acceptable way which requires
probably as much design work as actual programming.  Another idea along
those same lines would be having .k5login-style support for Kerberos.
We'd need a conf-flag for that for backwards compatibility (once the
.k5login-style support exists we should clean up our Kerberos
credentials matching to, for example, not accept 'sfrost/root' for
'sfrost' or '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' for '[EMAIL PROTECTED]').

It'd also be nice to support SASL, and better hashes than md5.

Thanks,

Stephen


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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-17 Thread Jim C. Nasby
On Sat, Apr 15, 2006 at 03:05:20PM -0400, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
 All ideas welcome!

I know it's not directly PostgreSQL related, but I'd love to see the
dbt* code improved. Items on my wish-list:

- make it easy to run the test framework and clients on a seperate
  machine from the database server
- keep results in a database
- provide a front-end to allow users to schedule tests in a queue
- add support for windows, at least for the database (theoretically
  possible to run that way now, but you have to do everything by hand)

Another idea: afaik, spikesource is still offering a bounty for
improvements to OSS test suites, something that'd fit well with SoC.
-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Pervasive Software  http://pervasive.comwork: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf   cell: 512-569-9461

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-16 Thread Dave Page


-Original Message-
From: Jonah H. Harris[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 15/04/06 20:06:27
To: Pgsql Hackerspgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

 As such, we need to quickly put together a list of oh, 15-20 midlevel
 project ideas. 

Another thought - a nice C++ project, requiring minimal previous knowledge of 
existing code would be to add a query builder to pgAdmin.

Regards, Dave

-Unmodified Original Message-
Hey everyone,

I know we started a discussion a month or so ago regarding ideas for
SoC projects.  However, after reading through the thread, I didn't see
us nail down any actual items.

As such, we need to quickly put together a list of oh, 15-20 midlevel
project ideas.  I'm sure we can pull some off the TODO list, but we
should also look at project ideas for porting some of the most used
third-party OSS software to PostgreSQL too (portals, CMS systems,
accounting systems, etc.).

All ideas welcome!

--
Jonah H. Harris, Database Internals Architect
EnterpriseDB Corporation
732.331.1324

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[HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-15 Thread Jonah H. Harris
Hey everyone,

I know we started a discussion a month or so ago regarding ideas for
SoC projects.  However, after reading through the thread, I didn't see
us nail down any actual items.

As such, we need to quickly put together a list of oh, 15-20 midlevel
project ideas.  I'm sure we can pull some off the TODO list, but we
should also look at project ideas for porting some of the most used
third-party OSS software to PostgreSQL too (portals, CMS systems,
accounting systems, etc.).

All ideas welcome!

--
Jonah H. Harris, Database Internals Architect
EnterpriseDB Corporation
732.331.1324

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-15 Thread Dave Page


-Original Message-
From: Jonah H. Harris[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 15/04/06 20:06:27
To: Pgsql Hackerspgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request


 As such, we need to quickly put together a list of oh, 15-20 midlevel
 project ideas.  

There's a couple of listen/notify todos iirc that would be nice to get done - 
one to allow a message to be sent with the notify, and one to move from a table 
based design to shared mem/disk.

Regards, Dave

-Unmodified Original Message-
Hey everyone,

I know we started a discussion a month or so ago regarding ideas for
SoC projects.  However, after reading through the thread, I didn't see
us nail down any actual items.

As such, we need to quickly put together a list of oh, 15-20 midlevel
project ideas.  I'm sure we can pull some off the TODO list, but we
should also look at project ideas for porting some of the most used
third-party OSS software to PostgreSQL too (portals, CMS systems,
accounting systems, etc.).

All ideas welcome!

--
Jonah H. Harris, Database Internals Architect
EnterpriseDB Corporation
732.331.1324

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-15 Thread Neil Conway
On Sat, 2006-04-15 at 21:24 +0100, Dave Page wrote:
 one to allow a message to be sent with the notify, and one to move
 from a table based design to shared mem/disk.

Doing the latter is a precondition for implementing the former in a
reasonable way, I believe.

BTW, these two web log entries summarizing Mono and Mozilla's
experiences with SoC might make interesting reading:

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/2006/03/summer_of_code_six_months_on.html
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Apr-13.html

 we should also look at project ideas for porting some of the most used
 third-party OSS software to PostgreSQL too (portals, CMS systems,
 accounting systems, etc.).

Given the above, I would be wary of such projects bit-rotting. If the
upstream project hasn't bothered to add PostgreSQL support, there might
be a good reason why: writing truly database-agnostic applications is
not always easy (or even desirable).

-Neil



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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-15 Thread Jonah H. Harris
On 4/15/06, Neil Conway [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Doing the latter is a precondition for implementing the former in a
 reasonable way, I believe.


 BTW, these two web log entries summarizing Mono and Mozilla's
 experiences with SoC might make interesting reading:

Thanks for the reading material.  I don't think our project is exactly
the same, but it's good information to keep in mind.

 Given the above, I would be wary of such projects bit-rotting. If the
 upstream project hasn't bothered to add PostgreSQL support, there might
 be a good reason why: writing truly database-agnostic applications is
 not always easy (or even desirable).

This isn't always the case.  In a lot of cases, the developers just
wanted to take the easy route and used MySQL... they have a lot of
people asking for PostgreSQL support but they don't have the expertise
to add it themselves.

--
Jonah H. Harris, Database Internals Architect
EnterpriseDB Corporation
732.331.1324

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Re: [HACKERS] Google SoC--Idea Request

2006-04-15 Thread Robert Treat
On Saturday 15 April 2006 19:25, Jonah H. Harris wrote:
 On 4/15/06, Neil Conway [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Doing the latter is a precondition for implementing the former in a
  reasonable way, I believe.
 
 
  BTW, these two web log entries summarizing Mono and Mozilla's
  experiences with SoC might make interesting reading:

 Thanks for the reading material.  I don't think our project is exactly
 the same, but it's good information to keep in mind.


Agreed. I sent some ideas to Josh, was thinking he might be posting a list 
soon. I kept it aimed at a few ideas I have had/seen that need an initial 
push to get going but beyond that could be (and likely would be) community 
maintained.  Example?  Extendning the build farm code to test external pl 
langs or database drivers or patches other modules.  We've talked about it, 
and if someone had the time to make the push, I believe this would be 
community maintained going forward. 

  Given the above, I would be wary of such projects bit-rotting. If the
  upstream project hasn't bothered to add PostgreSQL support, there might
  be a good reason why: writing truly database-agnostic applications is
  not always easy (or even desirable).

 This isn't always the case.  In a lot of cases, the developers just
 wanted to take the easy route and used MySQL... they have a lot of
 people asking for PostgreSQL support but they don't have the expertise
 to add it themselves.


I think more importantly is that the time needed to do an initial port is 
often much greater than it is to maintain a port.

-- 
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

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