Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Avoiding upgrade backlash

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.

Joshua D. Drake