Re: [BUGS] libpgtcl doesn't use UTF encoding of TCL

Reinhard Max <max@suse.de> writes:
>> [ concerning libpgtcl ]
>> We really don't want to give up backwards compatibility just yet.

> How far do you want it to be backwards compatible? If >= 8.0 is OK,
> I'll possibly overwork libpq later this year to use Tcl's object
> interface. I expect at least some performance gain out of this.

That's been on the to-do list for awhile, but we haven't really faced up
to the question of whether Tcl 7.* compatibility is still important to
retain.  I can see three plausible paths:

1. Drop 7.* compatibility, rework code to use 8.0 object interfaces.

2. Rework code to use object interfaces #if TCL >= 8.0, else not.

3. Build a separate, new implementation that's only for Tcl >= 8.0,  but leave the old code available as a separate
library.

My guess is that #2 would uglify the code to the point of
unmaintainability --- but I haven't really looked to see how extensive
the changes might be; perhaps it'd be workable.  #3 would create a
different sort of maintainability issue, namely updating two parallel
sets of code when there were common bugs.  Probably the old code would
get dropped at some future time anyway, so that ultimately #3 becomes
#1.

I don't have a strong opinion about what to do.  I've cc'd this to
pgsql-interfaces, maybe we can get some comments there.  Does anyone
still use/care about Tcl 7.* ?
        regards, tom lane