Forum OpenACS Q&A: moving to PG 7.2....

Posted by Ben Adida on 07/31/02 05:54 PM

Hi all,

As we work on dotLRN, it's become evident that maintaining 7.1
and 7.2 compatibility is kind of a pain at development time. 7.2
has some nice new features (like create or replace) that make
maintenance that much nicer.

We're seriously considering moving the requirements for
dotLRN to PG 7.2, given that a 7.1 to 7.2 migration is mostly
painless. I also want to get people's read on moving OpenACS
4.6 (the next version) to a 7.2 requirement. Thoughts on this?

2: Response to moving to PG 7.2.... (response to 1)

Posted by C. R. Oldham on 07/31/02 05:58 PM

Require it. "Create or replace" IMHO alone almost makes it worth it.

3: Response to moving to PG 7.2.... (response to 1)

Posted by Don Baccus on 07/31/02 06:13 PM

Yes, I've been thinking of proposing this as part of our 4.6 effort, plans for which will start developing shortly (keep tuned, folks).

Traditionally we've supported "Version N and N-1" where "N" is the current version. PG 7.3 is going to start rolling out in at least preliminary form in September making it "N", apparently, so requiring PG 7.2 as a base while also working to make sure we work with whatever new incompatibilities the PG gifts us in PG 7.3 sounds like the right strategy to me.

Trying to make things work with PG 7.1, 7.2 *and* 7.3 sounds unjustifiably complex to me.

4: Response to moving to PG 7.2.... (response to 1)

Posted by Roberto Mello on 08/02/02 03:15 AM

I'm for PG 7.2. The pg_dump and PL/pgSQL fixes/enhancements are especially nice.

5: Response to moving to PG 7.2.... (response to 1)

Posted by Jun Yamog on 08/02/02 05:06 AM

I am for it even though I am sure we will be terribly hit by it. But I believe we must move on.

We have sites that used to run on Illustra then migrated to Postgres 6... 7.0... then to 7.1. I don't know how much it can still take.

Do you think its safe to run to postmasters in a single box? One in 7.1 and another 7.2?

6: Response to moving to PG 7.2.... (response to 1)

Posted by Dave Bauer on 08/03/02 06:33 PM

Here is my reason for switching (other than create or replace)

ERROR:  triggered data change violation on relation "acs_objec
t_context_index"

and related items. I hear this was fixed in postgresql 7.2.

7: Response to moving to PG 7.2.... (response to 1)

Posted by Don Baccus on 08/03/02 07:48 PM

Jun: yes, I've done it for development. You need to have one of them listen on a port other than the default, of course. The issue is mostly one of memory, you need enough RAM for both to have a reasonably large amount of shared buffer space if they're both going to be serving busy sites.

Dave: you're right and that's a very good reason right there to upgrade!

8: Response to moving to PG 7.2.... (response to 1)

Posted by Jun Yamog on 08/04/02 05:51 AM

Thanks Don for confirming that its possible. It will be production sites. This sites are very old sites. Not that busy anymore but still being used. Its impractical to overhaul this sites just because we need to upgrade. The client will not pay to upgrade their data model to 7.2 in case it does not really work for 7.2.