Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net> writes:
> * Josh Berkus (josh@berkus.org) wrote:
>> If we clearly mark the old function names as deprecated aliases, client
>> tools will gradually move to the new names.
> No, they won't. They haven't. Look at pg_shadow- it was clearly marked
> as deprecated in *8.1*.
Back in 8.1 we didn't have extensions. Now that we do, I think the
terms of discussion are a bit different. In particular, if we relegate
the aliases to an extension, the pain of getting/installing that extension
will provide a forcing function encouraging users to fix their code so
they don't need it anymore.
Also, our experience with contrib/tsearch2 suggests that the extension
shouldn't be part of contrib, because we have zero track record of getting
rid of stuff in contrib, no matter how dead it is.
So I'm entirely happy with somebody who feels a need for this developing
an extension that we don't ship with the core system, and maintaining it
for as long as they continue to feel the need for it. We couldn't stop
that from happening anyway. But let's not buy into maintaining it as
part of the core distribution. We don't have a mechanism for getting
rid of stuff once it's in the distro.
regards, tom lane