On Tue, Apr 5, 2022 at 10:32 AM Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > Robert Haas <robertmh...@gmail.com> writes: > > On Tue, Apr 5, 2022 at 10:17 AM Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > >> Renaming it would constitute an API break, which is if anything worse > >> than an ABI break. > > > I don't think so, because an API break will cause a compilation > > failure, which an extension author can easily fix. > > My point is that we want that to happen in HEAD, but it's not okay > for it to happen in a minor release of a stable branch.
I understand, but I am not sure that I agree. I think that if an extension stops compiling against a back-branch, someone will notice the next time they try to compile it and will fix it. Maybe that's not amazing, but I don't think it's a huge deal either. On the other hand, if existing builds that someone has already shipped stop working with a new server release, that's a much larger issue. The extension packager can't go back and retroactively add a dependency on the server version to the already-shipped package. A new package can be shipped and specify a minimum minor version with which it will work, but an old package is what it is. -- Robert Haas EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
