Re: [gsmith@gregsmith.com: Re: [patch] GUC source file and line number]

On Tue, 2 Sep 2008, Tom Lane wrote:

>> How about having two new columns "reset value" and "boot value"?
>
> Like it better than "default value" ...

It's being a bit pedantic at the expense of the user, but I don't really 
care that much here.  I exposed the boot_val and described it in the 
documentation as:

"Default value if the parameter is not explicitly set"

That's the value that people care about--if they comment out a setting 
altogether and restart the server, what will it go back to.  New admins 
and people playing with the config files in a tuning content aren't often 
using sighup in my experience, they just restart the server after changes.

I'm not aware of any specific use case for exposing the reset value other 
than for completeness sake.  Having both exposed with names that don't 
mean anything to new admins is making the user experience more difficult 
than it needs to be.  That was why I just picked the more important one 
and named it "default"; that makes the case for the average user so easy 
they don't even need to look at the documentation.

I note the ongoing GUC units debate as a reminder that a technically 
correct UI is usually preferred in this project to an easier to use but 
slightly ambiguous one, and I'm not going to argue for "default" further 
if everyone else is happy with a cryptic naming instead.  The important 
thing is that the boot_val gets exposed somehow so tool writers can 
trivially present it as an option.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD