Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote:
> What harm is being done by the status quo? What benefit do
> we get out of changing the default?
I really think that the biggest harm is that people trying to
convert to PostgreSQL, or testing PostgreSQL with their
applications, can get bad behavior from use of standard string
literals. If they post to a list and we point out the setting,
that'll probably be the end of the trouble -- and I have seen a few
such posts. Interestingly, the frequency of such posts dropped off
after 8.2 was released with the GUC to configure it, which suggests
that people are often reading documentation before making the
attempt or at least doing web searches about the problem and fixing
it without a post to the community.
I do think we might be well-served to have such issues as this and
the "it's not a character string literal, it's a literal of UNKNOWN
type" covered in a page which is prominent enough to be likely to be
read by those considering migration or compatibility testing. I'm
not sure exactly where that would be, unless it's a couple more FAQ
entries -- but a "compatibility and migration" page might be worth
creating, with a reasonably prominent link from the home page.
-Kevin