Re: pg_dump versus ancient server versions

On 2021-Oct-25, Tom Lane wrote:

> It's also unclear to me why we'd leave Windows out of this discussion.
> We keep saying we want to encourage Windows-based hackers to contribute,
> so doesn't that require testing it on the same basis as other platforms?

Testing of in-support branches, sure -- I don't propose to break that.
But this is all about providing *some* server against which to test
client-side changes with, right? Not to test the old servers
themselves. Looking at Amit K's "Postgres person of the week" interview[1]
and remembering conversations with David Rowley, Windows hackers seem
perfectly familiar with getting Linux builds going, so we wouldn't need
to force MSVC fixes in order for them to have old servers available.

But anyway, I was thinking that the fixes required for MSVC buildability
were quite invasive, but on looking again they don't seem all that
bad[2], so I withdraw that comment.

I do think you have moved the goalposts: to reiterate what I said above,
I thought what we wanted was to have *some* server in order to test
client-side changes with; not to be able to get a server running on
every possible platform. I'm not really on board with the idea that old
branches have to be buildable everywhere all the time.

[1] https://postgresql.life/post/amit_kapila/
[2] e.g., commit 2b1394fc2b52a2573d08aa626e7b49568f27464e

--
Álvaro Herrera PostgreSQL Developer — https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/