Re: Proof of concept: standalone backend with full FE/BE protocol

Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 6:51 AM, Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
>> Not enough. This feature is clearly being suggested as a way to offer
>> Postgres in embedded mode for users by a back door. Doing that forces
>> us to turn off many of the server's features and we will take a huge
>> step backwards in features, testing, maintainability of code and
>> wasted community time.

> That's not clear to me at all.  IIRC, the original idea was Tom's, and
> the idea is to make it possible to have, for example, a psql session
> connected to a standalone database, which can't be done right now.  I
> don't use standalone mode much, but when I do, I'd sure like to have
> the psql interface rather than the existing standalone mode interface.

pg_dump from a standalone backend seems like another core use case.
That's not just more convenience, it's functionality you just don't
have right now.

I think that it might someday be interesting to allow a full server to be
started on-demand in this way.  But the patch as proposed is not that,
it's just a nicer interface to the existing standalone mode.
        regards, tom lane