Re: How to modify ENUM datatypes?

On Monday 28 April 2008 10:28, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 08:33:28PM -0400, Robert Treat wrote:
> > enum types custom ordering. It also showcases the idea of data
> > definitions that "should never change", but that do changes every half
> > dozen years or so. Now you can argue that since it is expected that the
> > ratings might change in some way every few years that an enum type is not
> > a good choice for this, but I feel like some type of counter-argument is
> > that this is probably longer than one would expect thier database
> > software to last. :-)
>
> I think that if you are building software on the premise that it's
> only going to last five years, you oughta have a look around on the
> Internet again. Or think about why banks spent the money they did a
> few years back poring over ancient code making sure that two-digit
> year representations weren't in use.
>

If one were to have built something on postgresql 5 years ago, they would have
had to do it on 7.3. Whenever anyone posts a problem on 7.3, the first thing
people do now days is jump up and down waving thier arms about while
exclaiming how quickly they should upgrade. While I am certain there are even
older versions of postgres still running in production out there, I'd have to
say that the core developers for this project do not release software with
the expectation that you will use if for more than 5 years.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL