Re: Pg removal of implicit type casts in 8.3

["David A. Bandel" <..hidden..>]

On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 11:06 AM, Joshua D. Drake <..hidden..> wrote:

[snip]

>  >
>  > 2.  The PostgreSQL home page, by having a very prominent link to 8.3
>  > (but only small links to 8.2 and lower) is obviously pushing 8.3 and
>  > so will be the most likely to be installed.  They call it stable.
>  >
>
>  I happen to be a part of "They". I didn't say anything about stable, I
>  said supported. There is a difference :) 8.3 breaks stuff, lots of it.
>  It breaks it because it changes the way two very widely used items does
>  things, Tsearch and casts.

Good to know.  But now cast aside all your preconceptions (or grab
your wife/girlfriend/significant other) and ask them to if they came
to this page, which version would they d/l and why?

I do find it odd something this important isn't mentioned right there.
 This is kinda major.

>
>
>  > 3.  During a recent upgrade of my Debian testing (not unstable, but
>  > testing) systems, I got this note:
>  >
>
> >  The old server and client packages are no longer supported. After the
>  >  existing clusters are upgraded, the postgresql-8.2 and
>  >  postgresql-client-8.2 packages should be removed.
>  >  Please see /usr/share/doc/postgresql-common/README.Debian.gz for details.
>  >
>  > So as far as at least one distro is concerned, 8.2 is obsolete and
>  > unsupported, or so they say.
>
>  No you are misunderstanding Debian. Debian says that "as of testing" 8.2
>  is deprecated. That is *not* anywhere near close to stable or supported.

OK, but see other Debian related post below.  And testing is pretty
close to stable -- unstable is not.  My command of the English
language is fairly good.  And while you may want to split hairs or
pick nits, a very large number of folks reading these pages are ESL
folks and don't understand what's not said or the difference between
stable/supported etc.  I deliberately suspend preconceptions when I
read something.

>
>
>   >  I suspect all Debian based distros will
>  > do/have done the same, since a number are based on testing and/or
>  > unstable.
>  >
>
>  Actually no. Ubuntu for example doesn't have 8.3 in dapper which is
>  their current "Stable" until Hardy is released.

Ubuntu is not the only one -- try Sidux.

>
>
>
>  > Is it possible to install implicit type casts?  That might be the
>  > quickest and easiest thing for the short term.
>  >
>
>  No. It is a fundamental change.
>
>
>  >> And if you want to try PostgreSQL 8.3 with LSMB experimentally (for the
>  >> purpose of providing bug reports, etc), you want to be running the
>  >> validation tarball of 1.2.13.
>  >
>  > I would be more than happy to do this if someone would tell me where to get it.
>  >
>
>  That is an excellent opportunity. Thanks for your offer to help.

Installed and working -- so far no issues.  Will report back w/
specifics if/when I run into them.

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
 - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto