Re: Removal of deprecated views pg_user, pg_group, pg_shadow

Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net> writes:
> The question of removing the pre-role, deprecated, views of pg_user,
> pg_group and pg_shadow has come up again.

> I figured a new thread was in order, however, to allow others to weigh
> in on it.

> Note that these views have not been consistently maintained and have
> ended up including some role attributes from recent versions (eg:
> bypassrls) but were missed when others were added (eg: createrole).
> There are properly maintained and cared for role-based versions of all
> of these views, which are pg_roles, pg_auth_members, and pg_authid,
> respectively.

Umm ... what exactly is the argument that those views are really better,
and are not just destined to become legacy views in their turn?

> As we move forward with the other many changes in PG10, it seems like a
> good time to remove these inconsistent and ancient views that were
> introduced when roles were added in 2005.

This sounds like "v10 is a great time to break stuff", which we've
already agreed is not project policy.

If there's a positive reason why these old views are impeding progress,
then let's remove 'em, but I don't think you've presented one. What
exactly will it hurt to leave them there?

regards, tom lane