Re: Improved \df(+) in psql + backward-compatibility

David Fetter wrote:

>On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 08:12:37AM -0400, Robert Treat wrote:
>  
>
>>On Monday 29 August 2005 00:33, Tom Lane wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>David Fetter <david@fetter.org> writes:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>On a slightly related note, I've noticed that psql isn't
>>>>backward compatible.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>We have never expected psql's \d commands to work against older
>>>server versions, and two months after feature freeze isn't the
>>>time to start making that happen.
>>>      
>>>
>
>Tom, good point on the timing.  I wish I'd come up with this at a
>better moment for 8.1.  I still contend that this falls squarely in
>the realm of bug fixes
>

[ -patches removed ]

I don't see how, if it is not functionality that has been explicitly or 
implicitly promised. The fact that it isn't what you expected doesn't 
make it a bug.

There's a natural tendency to want to call things bugs at this stage of 
the cycle so that they qualify for application, but there's a reason we 
have a freeze, and it needs to be adhered to.

If we're going to do backwards compatibility for psql then we need to do 
it in a fairly comprehensive way, not bit by bit, because we can 
reasonably say either "we support backwards compatibility" or "we don't 
support backwards compatibility", but we cannot reasonably say "we 
support backwards compatibility just for these commands" - that's way 
too confusing. The task is probably non-trivial - just look at pg_dump. 
Might be another good starting hackers project.

cheers


andreew