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Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 09:18:47 +1100
Message-ID: <37ed240d0903081518h5a79d197w1f71aabba00f99da@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [DOCS] the sad state of our FAQs
From: Brendan Jurd <direvus@gmail.com>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com>,
	Stefan Kaltenbrunner <stefan@kaltenbrunner.cc>,
	PostgreSQL www <pgsql-www@postgresql.org>, pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
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On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> I think it might well be true though that it'd be better to have one FAQ
> with answers that say something like "Before version x.y, do this ...
> in x.y and later, do that ...". =A0That approach makes sure that people
> know that they are reading version-specific advice; whereas the separate
> FAQs approach makes it pretty easy for people to fail to notice that
> they are reading advice that's inappropriate for their version.

I agree, and note that at least one of the existing FAQs already
adopts this style of advice.  In 4.19:

    "In PostgreSQL versions < 8.3, ... This problem does not occur in
PostgreSQL 8.3 and later."

While I'm not a big fan of using comparison operators in English
prose, this approach seems to work well.

>
> I guess the sticking point would be about how long to preserve FAQ
> entries that are no longer relevant to the current release.
>

Really something to be worked out on a per-case basis I suppose.  If
the goal of the FAQ is to help people who have Questions that are
Asked Frequently, then we could stop mentioning a release when people
stop asking questions about it?

Cheers,
BJ