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Re: First draft of PG 19 release notes

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>

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From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
To: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Cc: David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com>, David Geier <geidav.pg@gmail.com>, PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Date: 2026-04-21T20:28:09Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 11:52:37AM -0400, Andres Freund wrote:
> On 2026-04-20 12:12:07 -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > So, these are not really rules, but a suggestion to just include more
> > and we can trim.  I see several problems with that:
> > 
> > 1.  Researching and writing each item is what takes the most time, so it
> > could double my time to do this, which is fine if there were not other
> > problems.
> 
> FWIW, I think it's totally fine if you say that you don't want to do the work
> to formulate performance improvement release note entries.  It's a lot of work
> to curate the release notes, it makes sense to split the work up.

When people complained about missing optimizer improvements, I was able
to add them by referencing the plan changes they effect, with the
assumption that they understand plan types.  For lower-level performance
improvements, it is nearly impossible for me to explain the items in a
way that references something the reader will understand.  Saying "widget
X is faster" when the user has no idea what X is just isn't useful
information for them, and I can't even explain widget X in a brief,
user-relatable way.  It is this fundamental issue that has prevented me
from even trying.

In summary, I was only able to do the optimizer additions by referencing
plan types --- if I didn't assume users understand plan types, adding
the optimizer issues would also have been impossible for me.  I think
David Rowley's idea of rolling up performance improvements into a single
release note entry that is relatable is a great idea, but something I am
incapable of doing without a lot of help.  Giving a list of commits and
git details might allow others to create text for such items.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →

  1. doc PG 19 relnotes: remove VALIDATE CONSTRAINT lock item

  2. Fix ALTER DOMAIN VALIDATE CONSTRAINT locking

  3. Revert "Enable fast default for domains with non-volatile constraints"

  4. doc PG 19 relnotes: improve awkward or confusing wording

  5. doc PG 19 relnotes: more fixes

  6. doc PG 19 relnotes: various corrections

  7. doc PG 19 relnotes: adjust item to mention pg_replication_slots

  8. doc PG 19 relnotes: remove "Add fake LSN support to hash index"

  9. doc PG 19 relnotes: add two optimizer hooks

  10. doc PG 19 relnotes: remove "Optionally" for CPU optimizations

  11. doc PG 19 relnotes: adjustments/removal of items

  12. doc PG 19 relnotes: add UTF-8 case folding performance item

  13. doc PG 19 relnotes: correct two items

  14. doc PG 19 relnotes: add missing commits and details

  15. doc PG 19 relnotes: fix typo, "date" -> "data"

  16. doc PG 19 relnotes: add author and move items

  17. doc PG 19 relnotes: update author

  18. doc PG 19 relnotes: add free space map all-visible item

  19. doc PG 19 relnotes: remove "Lakshmi N" as author of checksums

  20. doc PG 19 relnotes: fix "now targets"

  21. doc PG 19 relnotes: adjust ShmemRequestStruct item

  22. Improve various new-to-v19 appendStringInfo calls

  23. doc: Fix data_checksums data type

  24. Fix WITHOUT OVERLAPS' interaction with domains.

  25. Online enabling and disabling of data checksums

  26. Doc: split functions-posix-regexp section into multiple subsections.

  27. make immutability tests in to_json and to_jsonb complete

  28. Optimize tuple deformation

  29. pgstattuple: Optimize pgstattuple_approx() with streaming read

  30. Use fake LSNs to improve nbtree dropPin behavior.

  31. Use streaming read for VACUUM cleanup of GIN

  32. Clean up ICU includes.

  33. ICU: use UTF8-optimized case conversion API

  34. Add the MODE option to the WAIT FOR LSN command

  35. Speedup tuple deformation with additional function inlining