Re: Unlogged vs. In-Memory

Joshua Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:

> I was discussing the Unlogged Tables feature with an industry
> analyst.  He advised me fairly strongly that we should call it, or
> at least describe it, as "in-memory tables".  While I'm not that
> sanguine about renaming the feature, I'm happy to use marketing
> terms in descriptive text in a press release if it gets people
> interested.

I guess it does get the main idea across at the front.  We could
include in the "fine print" that the in-memory data can be paged to
disk temporarily when memory is needed for other purposes, and that
it will be saved on clean shutdown for automatic reload when
possible.

> Our basic issue with the cool features in 9.1 is the elevator
> pitch problem. Try to describe SSI to a reporter in 20 seconds or
> less.

Yeah, I've noticed that ...

> Nobody expects a news article to be perfectly accurate anyway.

... and that.

> However, I posted this because I think that several folks in the
> community feel that this is going too far into the land of
> marketese, and I want to hash it out and get consensus before we
> start pitching 9.1 final.

As long as the end result is accurate if someone makes it through
the whole thing, I don't think it's a problem to lead with the main
point.  In other words, calling it an in-memory table does capture
the essence of the intent; it is enough if the caveats which come
later cover the exceptions, IMO.  But let's not rename the feature;
this is about marketing presentation.

-Kevin