Re: beta3

Martín Marqués <martin@bugs.unl.edu.ar> writes:
> P.D.: bzip2 is slow, but you can get a real small package with it, even 
> though PostgreSQL isn't that big, if we compare it with KDE or Mozilla.

As an experiment, I zipped my current PG source tree with both.  (This
isn't an exact test of the distribution size, because I didn't bother
to get rid of the CVS control files, but it's pretty close.)

Original tar file:      37089280 bytes
gzip -9:         8183182 bytes
bzip2:             6762638 bytes

or slightly less than a 20% savings for bzip over gzip.  That's useful,
but not exactly compelling.  A comparison of unzip runtime also seems
relevant:

$ time gunzip pgsql.tar.gz

real    0m5.48s
user    0m4.46s
sys     0m0.62s

$ time bunzip2 pgsql.tar.bz2

real    0m27.77s
user    0m26.50s
sys     0m0.92s

If I'd downloaded this thing over a decent DSL or cable modem line,
bzip2 would actually be a net loss in total download + uncompress time.

<editorial>
The reason bzip is still an also-ran is that it's not enough better
than gzip to have persuaded people to switch over.  My bet is that
bzip will always be an also-ran, and that gzip will remain the de
facto standard until something comes along that's really significantly
better, like a factor of 2 better.  I've watched this sort of game
play out before, and I know you don't take over the world with a 20%
improvement over the existing standard.  At least not without other
compelling reasons, like speed (oops) or patent freedom (no win there
either).
</editorial>
        regards, tom lane