On Fri, Mar 15, 2019 at 4:42 PM Adrian Klaver <adrian.klaver@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Just curious, but wanted to follow up on whether rules are
> across-the-board discouraged? I've seen disparaging comments about
> them, but I don't see any indication of that on the create rule page.
See here:
https://www.postgresql-archive.org/Deprecating-RULES-td5727689.html
The rumor crops periodically that they will be deprecated. I personally
do not see that happening any time soon.
My issue with rules is this:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/11/rules.html
If you can understand what really goes on in the above you are ahead of
me. Given that my experience is that they do the unexpected as often as
the expected so I stay away from them. Triggers I understand even when
they error, which is the important part.
OK, and thanks for the info. I've gleaned that rules are not "deprecated" in the sense that they are slated for removal, but they are rather discouraged. Since that's the case, wouldn't it make sense to warn users about this? That might keep them away from rules, and ease any eventual deprecation/transition issues you might have by lowering the number of "rules" in the wild.
In the section on "Rules vs. Triggers" (41.7), it doesn't even hint at this, and even says:
"For the things that can be implemented by both, which is best depends on the usage of the database."
There _is_ a nice CAUTION box in 41.4 ("Rules on Insert, Update and Delete"). I would suggest that something like that should go into Rules vs. Triggers, and then have a short caution box at the top of perhaps every Rule page (or at the very least for "CREATE RULE") that says something like "Rules are discouraged. You may be better off with Triggers instead. See <rules_v_triggers>."
Just my two cents, but that might help more people be aware of the issue and avoid rules altogether.
Cheers,
Ken
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Adrian Klaver
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