Re: Should clients warn in case of server version mismatch

On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 09:16, Tom Lane wrote:
> "Rajesh Kumar Mallah" <mallah.rajesh@gmail.com> writes:
> > IMHO for major version mismatch psql should not present the
> > user with a prompt at all as certain commands are most likely
> > not work.
>
> The analogy you're drawing with pg_dump is faulty.  There are at least
> three good reasons for psql to be more forgiving of version mismatches
> than pg_dump is:

One more difference, pg_dump is backward compatible.  i.e. you don't
have to use the -i switch to run pg_dump v 8.1.x against pgsql v < 8.1
because pg_dump knows how to back up older version of the db on
purpose.  So, pg_dump is VERY forgiving going in one direction, as it
should be, and very unforgiving going in the other, again, as it should
be.