Re: That EXPLAIN ANALYZE patch still needs work

Simon Riggs <simon(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> writes:
> On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 15:32 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>> I propose we revert this patch and think about an interrupt-driven
>> sampling method instead.

> I don't have much more faith in crazy scheme No.2 either. (Mine or
> yours...)

> Can we just have an option to avoid the timing altogether, please? I
> don't want to have long discussions about instrumentation, I just want a
> reasonably useful EXPLAIN ANALYZE in a reasonable amount of time - one
> that we never, ever have to doubt whether the sampling works correctly
> on a Miasmic-367 with HyperKooling.

Frankly, I think the pre-existing version of EXPLAIN ANALYZE is fine.
People have been hyperventilating about the timing overhead but I think
that it's perfectly acceptable as-is. Certainly the removal of timing
is not going to convert an intolerable EXPLAIN ANALYZE runtime into an
acceptable one; what it *is* likely to do is let you be misled about
which part of the query is the problem.

regards, tom lane