Re: Auto-tuning work_mem and maintenance_work_mem

On Wed, Oct 09, 2013 at 12:30:22PM -0400, Stephen Frost wrote:
> * Pavel Stehule (pavel(dot)stehule(at)gmail(dot)com) wrote:
> > 2013/10/9 Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us>
> > > I went with shared_buffers because unlike the others, it is a fixed
> > > allocation quantity, while the other are much more variable and harder
> > > to set. I figured we could keep our 25% estimate of shared_buffers and
> > > everything else would fall in line.
> > >
> >
> > I understand, but your proposal change a logic to opposite direction. Maybe
> > better is wait to new GUC parameter, and then implement this feature, so be
> > logical and simply understandable.
>
> I disagree- having a better default than what we have now is going to
> almost certainly be a huge improvement in the vast majority of cases.
> How we arrive at the default isn't particularly relevant as long as we
> document it. Users who end up using the default don't do so because
> they read the docs and said "oh, yeah, the way they calculated the
> default makes a lot of sense", then end up using it because they never
> open the config file, at all.
>
> In other words, I think the set of people who would appreciate having
> the default calculated in a good way has no intersection with the set of
> people who *use* the default values, which is the audience that the
> default values are for.

+1 for setting defaults which assume an at least vaguely modern piece
of hardware.

By and large, people are not installing PostgreSQL for the very first
time on a server the newest component of which is ten years old.

Cheers,
David.
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