Re: First draft of PG 19 release notes

On Sat, Nov 7, 2026 at 06:04:48PM -0700, David G. Johnston wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 7, 2026 at 5:47 PM Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Nov  7, 2026 at 07:17:02PM -0500, shihao zhong wrote:
> > Thanks Bruce for explaining how the minor release notes fit in. That
> > makes sense, so please drop my patch.
> >
> This showed me that there is _some_ confusion in the process.  Suppose
> in PG 18.14 we tell users to reindex, and in PG 19.5, which was released
> on the same day as 18.14, we tell people to reindex for the same reason.
>
> Imagine someone is running 18.10, and they want to upgrade to 19.7.
> They will read all the release notes from 18.11 to 19.7, 
>
> My understanding (position?) is that upgrading from 16.5 to 18.6; I'd expect to
> need to upgrade to 16.15 and read release notes for 16.6-16.15; then read the
> notes for 17.0 and 18.0 when I go from 16.15 to 18.6.  I shouldn't need to read
> anything else in the 17 release nor the fixes applied to 18 for versions I
> never installed.  I'll never see that reindex twice.

You need to read all of 17 because if you are upgrading from 11 to 19.7
there might be reindex needs in PG 12-16.

> We don't support upgrading from an unsupported release, nor into an unsupported
> one.  And the fixes that hit a major version only matter if you'd already been
> running that version otherwise those same fixes would have appeared on your
> supported minor release notes.

Oh, I guess if you are always on supported releases you might be able to
skip 17, good point.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com

Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.