> I'd also like to add that people judging documentation effectiveness by its > length are certainly not real users of it. I've yet to meet a PostgreSQL user > who doesn't praise the product documentation, even if newcomers often need > some time to be able to understand where to find what. The Tsearch enabled > website has been a huge improvement here. > To ease PostgreSQL newbies manual grasping, I certainly don't think it will > need shortening the documentation. Agree, 125%. There are quick start guides for newbies, and a quadrillion goofy little howtos (although I've come to have some contempt for the whole "howto" category). I chose PostgreSQL over that-other-database because it had useful documentation and smelled like a "real" database. I'm also an Informix/DB2 DBA and I think the documentation is very good, there can't be too much documentation so anyone judging on length just needs to be dope-slapped. [And I've personally used the TOAST section to tune a database that uses lots of large values]. The current manual is divided into sections, including a tutorial so I just don't see any grounds for a complexity complaint at all. A new user should, of course, wade into the "System Administration" section with some sense of trepidation. My experience [now extensive] with users of that-other-database is that they will *ALWAYS* claim *ANYTHING* else is too complicated [most of them have never used anything else] before starting to explain why they have two storage backends and the merits between MyISAM and InnoDb; Sheeesh! It is important to distinguish between informed criticism and the triumvirate of laziness, fanboy FUD, and outright whining. OTOH, I think a paragraph explaining how HOT causes performance to differ from previous versions would be sufficient. It isn't really a user, or even an admin, tunable AFAIK. It is just an inherent good in the current version - but since it was mentioned allot in release announcements it merits some mention in the docs. Adam Tauno Williams, Network & Systems Administrator Consultant - http://www.whitemiceconsulting.com Developer - http://www.opengroupware.org ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
