Re: pg_migrator to /contrib in a later 9.0 beta

Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
> While most of the limitations in previous versions of pg_migrator are
> gone, there are still issues with migrating /contrib modules, and there
> are many steps to its use.

> I think to attain mass usage of pg_migrator, some type of one-click
> installer has to be built that can access the operating system and make
> the migration process simple, though that is probably beyond what we as
> a community are going to do.

While the above are true statements, IMO the real gating factor right now
for pg_migrator is that people don't know whether they can trust it.
It won't get over that basic hump without a lot more real-world testing;
and as long as it's a separately distributed project I don't think it'll
get the necessary level of testing. That's why I feel it needs some
time in contrib --- and why I don't have a warm fuzzy feeling about
Peter's proposal to push it directly into the core project.

As for the "one click" aspect, I think that that's largely on the heads
of packagers to provide some convenient method of using it. For the RPM
packages, I envision eventually having a "postgresql-migrate" package
that contains pg_migrator, a copy of the version-N-minus-1 postmaster,
and some sort of frontend script. Install, run the script, remove.
But we're a long way from that yet.

regards, tom lane