Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Avoiding upgrade backlash

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > Tom Lane wrote:
> >> Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> writes:
> >>> Hmmm.  I don't feel like it contains a clear warning, though.  We need a
> >>> statement like:
> >>> Some users may encounter issues upgrading due to the changes in handling
> >>> data type casts.  If you suspect that your schema or application may not
> >>> be handling data type comparisons cleanly, you are strongly urged to test
> >>> for casting error messages before upgrading your production server.
> >> When have we ever suggested that people *shouldn't* test their apps
> >> before committing to a major version update?
> >>
> >> I think the whole thing has been significantly overblown.  We have made
> >> incompatible changes bigger than this one --- and, often, harder to find
> >> let alone fix --- in almost every major release.  This one you can at
> >> least be pretty sure that you will get an error, and not a silent change
> >> in behavior, if you fall foul of it.
> >
> > Agreed.
>
> Honestly, I think you are underestimating this problem. I know that
> every single one of our customers is going to run into this and as much
> as I would like to say otherwise, the world has many more postgresql
> users than I have customers.
>
> This needs to be a dominant statement not only in the release notes but
> in the FAQ and frankly we should be running some up to the release
> announcements on -general and possibly the website about this change,
> how it manifests itself and explicit examples on how to resolve it.

If it is that big an issue why are we not getting more problem reports
from beta testers?

--
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://postgres.enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +