Re: An improved README experience for PostgreSQL

> On 28 Feb 2024, at 18:02, Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 02:46:11PM +0100, Daniel Gustafsson wrote:
>>> On 26 Feb 2024, at 21:30, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>>> Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> I think this would be nice.  If the Markdown version is reasonably readable
>>>> as plain-text, maybe we could avoid maintaining two READMEs files, too.
>>>> But overall, +1 to modernizing the README a bit.
>>>
>>> Per past track record, we change the top-level README only once every
>>> three years or so, so I doubt it'd be too painful to maintain two
>>> versions of it.
>>
>> It wont be, and we kind of already have two since there is another similar
>> README displayed at https://www.postgresql.org/ftp/.  That being said, a
>> majority of those reading the README will likely be new developers accustomed
>> to Markdown (or doing so via interfaces such as Github) so going to Markdown
>> might not be a bad idea.  We can also render a plain text version with pandoc
>> for release builds should we want to.
>
> Sorry, my suggestion wasn't meant to imply that I have any strong concerns
> about maintaining two README files.  If we can automate generating one or
> the other, that'd be great, but I don't see that as a prerequisite to
> adding a Markdown version.

Agreed, and I didn't say we should do it but rather that we can do it based on
the toolchain we already have.  Personally I think just having a Markdown
version is enough, it's become the de facto standard for such documentation for
good reasons.

--
Daniel Gustafsson