materialize sql: consider renaming `TAIL` to `SUBSCRIBE`

@frankmcsherry proposed on Slack a while back that we consider renaming TAIL to SUBSCRIBE:

Related to maybe repurposing CREATE MATERIALIZED ..., are there other things we might want to change before GA? One that leaps to mind is that TAIL is perhaps surprising to anyone not familiar with tail -f, and something like SUBSCRIBE could make more sense / line up with other systems. No thoughts myself, only that it felt weird that we were thinking of having COMPUTE use Subscribe to avoid name collision, and that seems like a better term for ADAPTER.

—https://materializeinc.slack.com/archives/C015RHB3LDR/p1657466645177949

I'd like us to consider this seriously before we commit to backwards compatibility on October 12.

cc @sjwiesman @morsapaes

Sep 15 '22 22:09 benesch

Why not both?

Sep 15 '22 23:09 rjnn

Why not both?

This is our one chance to not have to litter the docs with "SUBSCRIBE (nee TAIL)"!

Sep 16 '22 00:09 benesch

I like the current terminology and find it pretty apt, even as a non-engineer. It might also be useful to keep the term "subscribe" free in the user-facing context for future, undeveloped use cases (alerts?).

Not a strongly held opinion though.

Sep 17 '22 00:09 hlburak

It might also be useful to keep the term "subscribe" free in the user-facing context for future, undeveloped use cases (alerts?).

A slightly expanded version of TAIL is the plan for alerting use cases. This strikes me as further evidence that SUBSCRIBE is the right name!

Sep 17 '22 01:09 benesch

Just a quick ping that if we want to do this, it should be picked up soon :)

Sep 21 '22 14:09 sjwiesman