Re: Pluggable Indexes (was Re: rmgr hooks (v2))

Heikki Linnakangas wrote:
> Simon Riggs wrote:
> > Right now we've got a variety of index types that are *not* flourishing
> > (hash, bitmap, grouped).
>
> Hash indexam has been in core for ages, and yet no-one has bothered to
> implement WAL logging. If I've understood correctly, it has been now
> been revamped in 8.4 so that there's a performance use case to use it. I
> wouldn't be surprised if someone (GSoC?) implements WAL logging for it
> for 8.5.
>
> Bitmap indexes required significant changes to the rest of the system,
> the indexam API in particular.
>
> By "grouped", I presume you mean my grouped index tuples patch, aka
> clustered indexes. That too required changes to the indexam API, and
> even if it didn't, I can guarantee that I wouldn't spend any more time
> on it than I do now (= 0) if it was on pgfoundry.
>
> > If we allow them to develop as separate
> > projects, then whenever they are ready they can be used with particular
> > releases.
>
> Developing a new indexam is not something you do over the weekend. It's
> a long way from design to an implementation robust enough that anyone
> cares about crash recovery. Short-circuiting the release cycle with a
> plugin won't get you a production-ready indexam much sooner.

Agreed.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

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