Re: Lifecycle of PostgreSQL releases

alvherre(at)commandprompt(dot)com (Alvaro Herrera) writes:
> Joshua D. Drake escribió:
>> Tom Lane wrote:
>> > "Joshua D. Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> writes:
>> >> Erik Jones wrote:
>> >>> I really hope you meant upgrades to 8.2.x. And, no, it's not worth
>> >>> waiting. Upgrade at the soonest available opportunity, expecially the
>> >>> 7.4.x servers.
>> >
>> >> I don't really agree with this. If he is running 7.4.16 there very well
>> >> may be zero compelling reason for him to upgrade.
>> >
>> > Really? There are any number of anecdotal reports of massive speed
>> > improvements between 7.x and various 8.x versions. Not to mention a
>> > few feature improvements.
>>
>> There is zero question that 8.2 is faster than 7.4 *but* if 7.4 isn't
>> slow for them... Note, that I meant no reason for him to upgrade 7.4
>> *right now*. He could wait for 8.3. (I think he should get off 7.4 in
>> general)
>
> He could wait for 8.4 as well, as it will be probably faster and have
> more features than 8.3. Following your reasoning, one could wait
> essentially forever.

That *is* true for the case of the "really lightly used" database
where there isn't any particularly compelling reason to look to
upgrade.

- If it's providing results fast enough for the users, then they have
no reason to be demanding an upgrade.

- If it has enough functionality to support the queries they're
running, again, there's no good reason to demand an upgrade

The only reason to feel "forced" to upgrade is that at some point, the
old version essentially falls out of support.

I'd feel uncomfortable, today, about having any 7.3 databases around,
from that perspective, and I'd certainly be inclined to "leap" them
up, probably to 8.2. My discomfort level is such that I'd want to do
that now, before 8.3 appears. I fully expect that once 8.3 is around,
interest in supporting 7.4 will also begin to dwindle, and that's a
good enough reason to want to get off 7.4, not now, but soon enough.

Now, *eventually* Josh will want to upgrade to a new Saab, because the
old one will start getting expensive to maintain (fundamentally
because more and more bits of it will start aging noticeably). My
Honda Civic needs a bit of work now; in a couple years, the cost of
maintaining it may grow, and I'll want to get something new.
*Eventually*, I'll want to upgrade to a new cell phone because the old
one will be scratched up and the battery will cease to hold a decent
charge. But that's not true yet.

We don't need upgrades on these things *instantly* because of the huge
value of the utility of the upgraded features; we're using the
features modestly enough that we can afford to wait a while.

On the other hand, I have some apps where I'm quite looking forward to
8.3 because I expect to want to use 8.3's improvements in speed and
functionality Pretty Early in its release cycle.

Both scenarios can certainly occur.
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