Re: max_standby_delay considered harmful

> 1) Replace max_standby_delay with a boolean as per heikki's suggestion
> 
> 2) Add an explicitly experimental option like max_standby_delay or
> recovery_conflict_timeout which is only effective if you've chosen
> recovery_conflict="pause recovery"
> option and is explicitly documented as being scheduled to be replaced
> with a more complete system in future versions.

+1

As far as I can tell, the current delay *works*.  It just doesn't
necessarily work the way most people expect it to to work.  Kind of
like, hmmm, shared_buffers?  Or effective_cache_size?  Or
effective_io_concurrency?

And I still think that having this kind of a delay option will give us
invaluable use feedback on how the option *should* work in 9.1, which we
won't get if we don't have an option. I think we will be overhauling it
for 9.1, but I don't think that overhaul will benefit from a lack of data.

--                                  -- Josh Berkus                                    PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
                        http://www.pgexperts.com