Re: [PATCHES] postmaster/postgres merge for testing

Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> Attached is a patch that merges postmaster and postgres into just a 
> postmaster command.

I had some second thoughts about this, specifically about which
direction do we really want to go in.  With this patch, it no longer
really matters what the executable file is named, right?  We were both
implicitly assuming that the name should end up being "postmaster",
but I think there's a good case to be made that the right thing to do
is to migrate in the direction of having just one executable named
"postgres".  We've seen complaints before that having a daemon named
"postmaster" confuses newbies into thinking it's got something to do
with mail.  And it's already the case that the child processes all call
themselves "postgres", which will become even more confusing if there is
no longer any executable named "postgres".

If we went in this direction we'd have to keep the installed
postmaster->postgres symlink for awhile to avoid breaking existing
start scripts, but it could be deprecated and then removed in a few
releases.

Thoughts?
        regards, tom lane