Re: Selling an 8.1 to 8.3 upgrade

Merlin Moncure <mmoncure(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 1:01 PM, Josh Trutwin <josh(at)trutwins(dot)homeip(dot)net> wrote:
>> Sorry this is so vague, I'm frustrated with this request as I figured
>> just the amount of bug-fixes alone would be adequate reasoning.

> It's not. There are probably more people using 8.1 than 8.3 and 8.1
> has had more time to mature. From bug fix perspective, it's probably
> better (aside from some 'broken design' bugs that couldn't be
> backpatched, like plan invalidation).

That's a fair point, but *only* if the 8.1 installation in question is
reasonably up to date. If you're running something like 8.1.4 then
you're short several years of bug fixes, and it becomes much less
clear that what you've got is less buggy than 8.3.recent.

It would be interesting sometime to gather statistics on how far back
bug fixes tend to go in released branches. My sense of it is that
there's quite a large fraction that have to go back more than one
branch; but I have no numbers to back this up.

(The point is fresh in mind since I'm busy right now fixing an
aggregate/subselect bug that dates back to 7.4.)

regards, tom lane