Re: Lets (not) break all the things. Was: [pgsql-advocacy] 9.6 -> 10.0

On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 01:43:41PM -0400, Robert Haas wrote:
> I'm going to throw down the gauntlet (again) and say more or less what
> I previously said on the pgsql-advocacy thread.  I think that:
> 
> 1. Large backward compatibility breaks are bad.  Therefore, if any of
> these things are absolutely impossible to do without major
> compatibility breaks, we shouldn't do them at all.
> 
> 2. Small backward compatibility breaks are OK, but don't require doing
> anything special to the version number.
> 
> 3. There's no value in aggregating many small backward compatibility
> breaks into a single release.  That increases pain for users, rather
> than decreasing it, and slows down development, too, because you have
> to wait for the special magic release where it's OK to hose users.  We
> typically have a few small backward compatibility breaks in each
> release, and that's working fine, so I see little reason to change it.

Well, this is true for SQL-level and admin-level changes, but it does
make sense to group pg_upgrade breaks into a single release.  I think
the plan is for us to have logical replication usable before we make
such a change.

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

+ As you are, so once was I. As I am, so you will be. +
+                     Ancient Roman grave inscription +