"Magnus Hagander" <mha@sollentuna.net> writes:
> X and Y? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is SSL support. I'm
> not sure if it's still that way, but at least it used to be a pretty
> ugly kludge there with the connection being dropped and re-connected in
> some cases.
SSL support is a bad example, since it would have to be negotiated long
before any more general-purpose negotiation could occur. (You do want
the connection authentication exchange to happen under cover of SSL, no?)
ISTM most of the other features you might want to turn on and off can be
handled as SET commands: the client tries to SET a variable, the backend
either accepts it or returns an error. No need for special protocol
support if you do it that way. Can you point to any examples that have
to have a special protocol feature instead?
regards, tom lane