Re: AIX support - alignment issues

Hi,

On 2022-07-02 11:54:16 -0700, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> I tend to agree about dropping AIX. But I wonder if there is an
> argument against that proposal that doesn't rely on AIX being relevant
> to at least one user. Has supporting AIX ever led to the discovery of
> a bug that didn't just affect AIX?

Yes, it clearly has. But I tend to think that that's far outweighed by the
complications triggered by AIX support. It'd be a different story if AIX
hadn't a very peculiar linking model and was more widely accessible.

> What is the best argument *against* desupporting AIX that you know of?

Hm.

- a distinct set of system libraries that can help find portability issues

- With IBM's compiler it adds a, not otherwise used, compiler that PG builds
with. So the warnings could theoretically help find issues that we wouldn't
otherwise see - but I don't think that's been particularly useful (nor
monitored). And the compiler is buggy enough to add a fair bit work over the
years.

> Desupporting AIX doesn't mean that any AIX users will be left in the
> lurch immediately. Obviously these users will be able to use a
> supported version of Postgres for several more years.

Right.

Greetings,

Andres Freund