Re: Add new protocol message to change GUCs for usage with future protocol-only GUCs

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> Plus, you've got all of the consequences for non-core drivers, which
> have to both add support for the new wire protocol - if they don't
> want to seem outdated and eventually obsolete - and also test that
> they're still compatible with all supported server versions.
> Connection poolers have the same set of problems. The whole thing is
> almost a hole with no bottom. Keeping up with core changes in this
> area could become a massive undertaking for lots and lots of people,
> some of whom may be the sole maintainer of some important driver that
> now needs a whole bunch of work.
>

We already have this in many places. Headers or functions change and
extensions have to fix their code.
catalog changes force drivers to change their code.
This argument blocks any improvement to the protocol. I don't think it's
unreasonable to expect maintainers to keep up.
We could make it easier by having a specific list for maintainers, but that
doesn't change the work.

> I'm not sure how much it improves things if we imagine adding feature
> flags to the existing protocol versions, rather than whole new
> protocol versions, but at least it cuts down on the assumption that
> adopting new features is mandatory, and that such features are
> cumulative. If a driver wants to support TDE but not protocol
> parameters or protocol parameters but not TDE, who are we to say no?
> If in supporting those things we bump the protocol version to 3.2, and
> then 3.3 fixes a huge performance problem, are drivers going to be
> required to add support for features they don't care about to get the
> performance fixes? I see some benefit in bumping the protocol version
> for major changes, or for changes that we have an important reason to
> make mandatory, or to make previously-optional features for which
> support has become in practical terms universal part of the base
> feature set. But I'm very skeptical of the idea that we should just
> handle as many things as possible via a protocol version bump. We've
> been avoiding protocol version bumps like the plague since forever,
> and swinging all the way to the other extreme doesn't sound like the
> right idea to me.
>

+1 for not swinging too far here. But I don't think it should be a non
starter.
Dave