Re: Extension Templates S03E11

On Wed, 2013-12-11 at 20:49 +0100, Dimitri Fontaine wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > I strongly agree. PostgreSQL has succeeded because we try not to do
> > things at all until we're sure we know how to do them right.
>
> I still agree to the principle, or I wouldn't even try. Not in details,
> because the current design passed all the usual criteria a year ago.
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/6466.1354817682@sss.pgh.pa.us

For what it's worth, I think the idea of extension templates has good
conceptual integrity. Extensions are external blobs. To make them work
more smoothly in several ways, we move them into the catalog. They have
pretty much the same upsides and downsides of our existing extensions,
aside from issues directly related to filesystem vs. catalog.

Stephen had some legitimate concerns. I don't entirely agree, but they
are legitimate concerns, and we don't want to just override them.

At the same time, I'm skeptical of the alternatives Stephen offered
(though I don't think he intended them as a full proposal).

So right now I'm discouraged about the whole idea of installing
extensions using SQL. I don't see a lot of great options. On top of
that, the inability to handle native code limits the number of
extensions that could make use of such a facility, which dampens my
enthusiasm.

Regards,
Jeff Davis