Обсуждение: Cleaning up the books page
While adding the latest books to the books page I (re-)realized how much cruft that page has accumulated. A lot of books have links which are dead, some are listed multiple times in different editions, and many of them cover long since EOL version of postgres. On top of that, the indentation is quite creative. The attached set cleans up that page to make the content IMO more relevant and helpful to our users. As we've never claimed to have a complete list of all books ever published, keeping the old stuff on-line has no historical interest since Google, Amazon and others do a much better job at keeping such things available. The patches are: 0001: Removes all additional editions of the same book leaving the current 0002: Remove all books which 404, and update a few links to work 0003: Remove all books published before 2017 0004: Fix indentation I assume 0003 is the controversial one. Thoughts? -- Daniel Gustafsson Daniel Gustafsson
Вложения
On 2023-Jul-17, Daniel Gustafsson wrote: > While adding the latest books to the books page I (re-)realized how much cruft > that page has accumulated. A lot of books have links which are dead, some are > listed multiple times in different editions, and many of them cover long since > EOL version of postgres. On top of that, the indentation is quite creative. > > The attached set cleans up that page to make the content IMO more relevant and > helpful to our users. As we've never claimed to have a complete list of all > books ever published, keeping the old stuff on-line has no historical interest > since Google, Amazon and others do a much better job at keeping such things > available. I don't object to your cleanups, but would it make more sense to move the book listing to the pgweb database instead? -- Álvaro Herrera Breisgau, Deutschland — https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/ <Schwern> It does it in a really, really complicated way <crab> why does it need to be complicated? <Schwern> Because it's MakeMaker.
> On 17 Jul 2023, at 13:07, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org> wrote: > > On 2023-Jul-17, Daniel Gustafsson wrote: > >> While adding the latest books to the books page I (re-)realized how much cruft >> that page has accumulated. A lot of books have links which are dead, some are >> listed multiple times in different editions, and many of them cover long since >> EOL version of postgres. On top of that, the indentation is quite creative. >> >> The attached set cleans up that page to make the content IMO more relevant and >> helpful to our users. As we've never claimed to have a complete list of all >> books ever published, keeping the old stuff on-line has no historical interest >> since Google, Amazon and others do a much better job at keeping such things >> available. > > I don't object to your cleanups, but would it make more sense to move > the book listing to the pgweb database instead? I think that would make a lot of sense, and is a good next step once the data (and markup) is reasonably clean. Even better if we can make it such that new books are submitted to the backend with moderator approval like announce/organizations, but I don't know Django well enough to know how much work that would be. -- Daniel Gustafsson
On Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 1:23 PM Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> wrote: > > > On 17 Jul 2023, at 13:07, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org> wrote: > > > > On 2023-Jul-17, Daniel Gustafsson wrote: > > > >> While adding the latest books to the books page I (re-)realized how much cruft > >> that page has accumulated. A lot of books have links which are dead, some are > >> listed multiple times in different editions, and many of them cover long since > >> EOL version of postgres. On top of that, the indentation is quite creative. > >> > >> The attached set cleans up that page to make the content IMO more relevant and > >> helpful to our users. As we've never claimed to have a complete list of all > >> books ever published, keeping the old stuff on-line has no historical interest > >> since Google, Amazon and others do a much better job at keeping such things > >> available. > > > > I don't object to your cleanups, but would it make more sense to move > > the book listing to the pgweb database instead? > > I think that would make a lot of sense, and is a good next step once the data > (and markup) is reasonably clean. Even better if we can make it such that new > books are submitted to the backend with moderator approval like > announce/organizations, but I don't know Django well enough to know how much > work that would be. We've looked at that before, and the thing that's usually made us say no in the end is handling of the images. It's not all that hard to do, but it is a threshold, and we don't have a lot of updates in the big scheme of things... (And for the archeologist, there is an open ticket since 2011 to do it, in the nobody-ever-views-it pgweb tracker) -- Magnus Hagander Me: https://www.hagander.net/ Work: https://www.redpill-linpro.com/
> On 17 Jul 2023, at 13:26, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote: > > On Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 1:23 PM Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> wrote: >> >>> On 17 Jul 2023, at 13:07, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org> wrote: >>> >>> On 2023-Jul-17, Daniel Gustafsson wrote: >>> >>>> While adding the latest books to the books page I (re-)realized how much cruft >>>> that page has accumulated. A lot of books have links which are dead, some are >>>> listed multiple times in different editions, and many of them cover long since >>>> EOL version of postgres. On top of that, the indentation is quite creative. >>>> >>>> The attached set cleans up that page to make the content IMO more relevant and >>>> helpful to our users. As we've never claimed to have a complete list of all >>>> books ever published, keeping the old stuff on-line has no historical interest >>>> since Google, Amazon and others do a much better job at keeping such things >>>> available. >>> >>> I don't object to your cleanups, but would it make more sense to move >>> the book listing to the pgweb database instead? >> >> I think that would make a lot of sense, and is a good next step once the data >> (and markup) is reasonably clean. Even better if we can make it such that new >> books are submitted to the backend with moderator approval like >> announce/organizations, but I don't know Django well enough to know how much >> work that would be. > > We've looked at that before, and the thing that's usually made us say > no in the end is handling of the images. It's not all that hard to do, > but it is a threshold, and we don't have a lot of updates in the big > scheme of things... Now that you mention it, I think I've heard that before when this was discussed last. We could however add a blurb to the top of the page with instructions how to submit and include a link to pgsql-www. Right now it's not obvious how to get listed there, which clearly isn't helpful. > (And for the archeologist, there is an open ticket > since 2011 to do it, in the nobody-ever-views-it pgweb tracker) Odd, I've heard that bugtrackers magically make all things better</sarcasm> -- Daniel Gustafsson
On 7/17/23 5:54 AM, Daniel Gustafsson wrote: > While adding the latest books to the books page I (re-)realized how much cruft > that page has accumulated. A lot of books have links which are dead, some are > listed multiple times in different editions, and many of them cover long since > EOL version of postgres. On top of that, the indentation is quite creative. > > The attached set cleans up that page to make the content IMO more relevant and > helpful to our users. As we've never claimed to have a complete list of all > books ever published, keeping the old stuff on-line has no historical interest > since Google, Amazon and others do a much better job at keeping such things > available. > > The patches are: > > 0001: Removes all additional editions of the same book leaving the current > 0002: Remove all books which 404, and update a few links to work > 0003: Remove all books published before 2017 > 0004: Fix indentation > > I assume 0003 is the controversial one. Thoughts? I'm +1 for 0002 and 0004, and would prioritize committing 0002 to remove our outbound links with 404s. -1 for 0001 (strong opinion loosely held), -1 for 0003 (strong opinion, strongly held). Jonathan
Вложения
> On 18 Jul 2023, at 15:05, Jonathan S. Katz <jkatz@postgresql.org> wrote: > -1 for 0001 (strong opinion loosely held), I can have some sympathy for editions covering non-EOL versions, but not much. > -1 for 0003 (strong opinion, strongly held). What is the usecase you see for providing an incomplete list, with seemingly arbitrary chosen entries (they are not handpicked/curated for being prime examples) of resources for EOL versions? -- Daniel Gustafsson
On 7/19/23 6:04 AM, Daniel Gustafsson wrote: >> -1 for 0003 (strong opinion, strongly held). > > What is the usecase you see for providing an incomplete list, with seemingly > arbitrary chosen entries (they are not handpicked/curated for being prime > examples) of resources for EOL versions? We don't handpick or curate any of the published books so long as they're relevant to PostgreSQL, so I don't understand the point. But in general, the list is part of the record of published books. We don't remove downloads of EOL versions of PostgreSQL. Even if a book references an older version of PostgreSQL, it could still have useful information that's applicable to today. There are also books we list that deal more with strategy, which is version agnostic. Jonathan
Вложения
> On 18 Jul 2023, at 15:05, Jonathan S. Katz <jkatz@postgresql.org> wrote: > I'm +1 for 0002 and 0004, and would prioritize committing 0002 to remove our outbound links with 404s. I went ahead and committed the fix for broken links. Books where I could find a new link were updated, others had the link removed but the entry remains in place. -- Daniel Gustafsson