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by hans_castorp 2427 days ago
I never understood the obsession with the graphical display of execution plans (neither in Postgres nor in Oracle).

I find the text output much more useful and detailed then any graphical display. Especially when generated with "explain (analyze, buffers, timing) ..." and "track_io_timing" turned on.

2 comments

Well different mind work differently. Some are more receptive to visuals. I don't understand why some people refuse to acknowledge that.
I think the text display is great too! I built pg_flame mostly to help understand the relative timing of each step. Your brain can compare the size of each bar in a flamegraph virtually instantly, while comparing a bunch of actual time numbers scattered throughout the text output takes some time.

tldr; use both as needed