Re: MySQL-ism help patch for psql

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 9:05 AM, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> On tis, 2010-01-19 at 16:00 -0600, David Christensen wrote:
>> > Currently, a session will look like the following:
>> >
>> >    machack:machack:5485=# show tables;
>> >    See:
>> >           \d
>> >           or \? for general help with psql commands
>> >    machack:machack:5485=#
>>
>> I think if you make "show tables" and the others actually execute \d and
>> then possibly print a notice about what the "better" command would have
>> been, you actually *help* people do their work instead of appearing to
>> be a smartass -- "See, we took the time to research what you want to do,
>> and here is why it's wrong."
>>
>> Moreover, the backslash is really hard to type on some keyboards, so I'd
>> expect significant uptake for people to use the SHOW variants as their
>> primary method.
>
> I disagree.   No one has complained that we are being a "smartass" by
> reporting this for "help" in psql:
>
>        You are using psql, the command-line interface to PostgreSQL.
>        Type:  \copyright for distribution terms
>               \h for help with SQL commands
>               \? for help with psql commands
>               \g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
>               \q to quit
>
> while to be really helpful we would display \?.  After extensive
> discussion we chose against that because we wanted to steer people to
> the proper commands, rather than have them consider 'help' as a valid
> command.  The same is true for the MySQL commands --- we just want to
> point people to the proper commands.

+1.

...Robert