[postgis-users] postgis on postgresql 8.2 vs 8.3

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Mark, Regina,

Thank you for your feedback.

I was struggling to get the postgresql-8.2 Debian source package to 
build, finally got it in the wee hours of the morning. So that gives me 
the option of staying on 8.2 that I was afraid I might not have.

Since this is a new system and only has a trivial database that is easy 
to dump and restore, I guess I will do the 8.3 upgrade so I have a box 
running 8.3 and can see how that goes. If it turns out to be problematic 
then I will consider downgrading the system back to 8.2.

The big application I want running immediately is pgRouting and related 
scripts.

Is there a time frame for the 8.4 release that you are aware of?

Thanks,
   -Steve

Obe, Regina wrote:
> Steve,
> 
> Just to add my 2 cents.  I've been running 8.3 on 2  production systems
> for about 6-8 months now.  Aside from the index issue Mark already
> mentioned, and also a bbox issue (with cached bboxes not always being
> recalculated -- hmm I think this is fixed in 8.3.6 -- though I'll need
> to verify) , I haven't run into any issues as far as PostGIS is
> concerned.
> 
> However -- I think the biggest problem that people run into when
> upgrading from 8.2 to 8.3 is that they took out a lot of autocasting
> behavior so if you did things like assuming boolean can be treated as 1
> and were less than careful with dates and numbers I forget the others
> you may run into issues.  So you may want to test some of your apps in a
> test mode first before blindly upgrading. (Sorry to scare you like
> that).  I haven't run into such issues myself since the apps I have in
> 8.3  started out in 8.3.  I have yet to go back and upgrade my other
> apps running on an 8.2 install.
> 
> As far as what you get with upgrading and things to watch out for, I
> think its pretty well summarized here if you haven't already taken a
> look
> 
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/release-8-3.html
> 
> Although I'm almost tempted to say if you haven't upgraded yet you might
> just want to wait for 8.4.  8.4 has all the major earth shattering
> enhancements in it without any additional fuss (as there was with 8.3 --
> e.g removal of casting change that breaks apps) so you only need to test
> your apps once. Can't wait for that to officially come out.
> 
> Hope that helps,
> Regina
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net
> [mailto:postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of
> Stephen Woodbridge
> Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2009 11:21 PM
> To: PostGIS Users Discussion
> Subject: [postgis-users] postgis on postgresql 8.2 vs 8.3
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I have been holding back on upgrading my postgis installations from 
> postgresql 8.2 to 8.3 because:
> 
> 1) it seemed like there was a lot of new postgresql stuff to figure out 
> in 8.3. What are the big changes I need to be aware of?
> 
> 2) it seemed like there were initially some bugs and issues in 
> postgresql 8.3 that I'm guessing have mostly been resolved
> 
> 3) seemed like there have been or still are some postgis issues when 
> running on postgresql 8.3
> 
> Is postgis and 8.3 safe and stable? are there specific bugs I need to be
> 
> aware of? Do we have a list somewhere and work-arounds?
> 
> On my Debian box, I installed postgresql 8.2 long ago and have just held
> 
> onto it, but the packages are no longer available in the archives and 
> sometime later I added liblq5-dev package which appears to have come 
> from 8.3 which is causing me headaches.
> 
> I can upgrade to 8.3, does this require a dump and restore, or is there 
> a hot upgrade for postgis databases?
> 
> I can try and find a debian postgresql-8.2 source package and see if I 
> can build the .deb files from that, but it seems like I will like need 
> to upgrade to 8.3 regardless at some point.
> 
> So I looking for advice, feedback, whatever.
> 
> Thanks,
>    -Steve