Re: Documentation: references to old versions

Pavan Deolasee wrote:
> While reading some documentation, I noticed that we have references to
> past releases. For example,
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/xfunc-c.html mentions "A
> magic block is required as of PostgreSQL 8.2". Sure, this is true even
> as of 9.2 or even 9.3. There are a few more such references that I
> could spot with a simple grep in the doc/src/sgml directory. I wonder
> if this is worth fixing. I don't know sgml enough, but if it supports
> some sort of a meta-tag, then it might help to replace specific
> version references with something like <CURRENT_MAJOR_RELEASE> so that
> the current major version gets substituted when docs for that release
> are built.

I believe that this should remain "8.2".
It tells the reader that the magic block is required for
PostgreSQL since version 8.2, which is saying more than that
it is required in the current release.

Maybe the wording could be changed:
Since PostgreSQL 8.2, a magic block is required.

On the other hand, since 8.2 is desupported, the whole
"as of PostgreSQL 8.2" could be discarded.

I am not sure if <CURRENT_MAJOR_RELEASE> would be very useful.
I think that the documentation should only mention a version number
if the information stays valid.
Otherwise, one should use "the current version" to emphasize that
the statement is not tied to a certain version number.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe