Re: [PATCH] remove deprecated v8.2 containment operators

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 11:28 PM Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>
> > The changes to the contrib modules appear to be incomplete in some ways.
> >   In cube, hstore, and seg, there are no changes to the extension
> > scripts to remove the operators.  All you're doing is changing the C
> > code to no longer recognize the strategy, but that doesn't explain what
> > will happen if the operator is still used.  In intarray, by contrast,
> > you're editing an existing extension script, but that should be done by
> > an upgrade script instead.
>
> In the contrib modules, I'm afraid what you gotta do is remove the
> SQL operator definitions but leave the opclass code support in place.
> That's because there's no guarantee that users will update the extension's
> SQL version immediately, so a v14 build of the .so might still be used
> with the old SQL definitions.  It's not clear how much window we need
> give for people to do that update, but I don't think "zero" is an
> acceptable answer.

Based on my experience from the field, the answer is "never".

As in, most people have no idea they are even *supposed* to do such an
upgrade, so they don't do it. Until we solve that problem, I think
we're basically stuck with keeping them "forever". (and even if/when
we do, "zero" is probably not going to cut it, no)

-- 
 Magnus Hagander
 Me: https://www.hagander.net/
 Work: https://www.redpill-linpro.com/