Re: Removal of backward-compatibility docs mentions

[ Sorry for the two copies, Bruce: I forgot to CC the list previously ]

On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 13:57 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> The attached patch removes or minimizes some documentation mentions of
> backward compatibility for release 7.2 and earlier.

I don't think it's a net win to get rid of this text, as it describes
useful alternatives to the GUC variable:

*** doc/src/sgml/config.sgml 10 Mar 2006 19:10:47 -0000 1.52
--- doc/src/sgml/config.sgml 20 Mar 2006 18:40:44 -0000
***************
*** 3789,3801 ****
<listitem>
<para>
This controls the inheritance semantics, in particular whether
! subtables are included by various commands by default. They
were
! not included in versions prior to 7.1. If you need the old
! behavior you can set this variable to <literal>off</>, but in
! the long run you are encouraged to change your applications to
! use the <literal>ONLY</literal> key word to exclude subtables.
! See <xref linkend="ddl-inherit"> for more information about
! inheritance.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
--- 3789,3796 ----
<listitem>
<para>
This controls the inheritance semantics, in particular whether
! subtables are included by various commands by default. This
was
! added for compatibility with releases prior to 7.1.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>

*** doc/src/sgml/libpq.sgml 10 Mar 2006 19:10:48 -0000 1.206
--- doc/src/sgml/libpq.sgml 20 Mar 2006 18:41:05 -0000
***************
*** 689,699 ****
functions described below to get
at the contents of <structname>PGconn</structname>. Avoid directly
referencing the fields of the
<structname>PGconn</> structure because they are subject to change in
the future.
- (Beginning in <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> release 6.4, the
- definition of the <type>struct</type> behind <structname>PGconn</> is
not even provided in <filename>libpq-fe.h</filename>.
- If you have old code that accesses <structname>PGconn</structname>
fields directly, you can keep using it
- by including <filename>libpq-int.h</filename> too, but you are
encouraged to fix the code
- soon.)
</para>
</tip>

Removing the information about libpq-int.h but keeping the suggestion to
"avoid directly referencing fields of the PGconn structure" doesn't seem
consistent: the user *can't* directly reference fields without including
libpq-int.h. So I think this hunk should be kept.

The second hunk modified in maintenance.sgml removes some useful
information (ANALYZE collects rows by random sampling).

>From storage.sgml:

! Since <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> uses a fixed page size
(commonly
! 8Kb), and does not allow tuples to span multiple pages, so it's not
possible to
! store very large field values directly.

That is poorly phrased ("Since ..., so it's not").

-Neil