The result of this strategy is an extraordinary lack of cruft. Postgres has some obscure unpopular features, but it really doesn&#x27;t have any legacy behaviour.<p>If you read the MySQL documentation, it&#x27;s full of &quot;until version 5.7.7.3 this returned NULL if...&quot; or &quot;this will accept invalid dates unless a certain mode flag is enabled&quot; (I&#x27;m paraphrasing, obviously). Postgres has none of this.<p>They do occasionally deprecate features, such as OIDs, which are supported but not recommended (or particularly useful), or they change some key behaviour (standard_conforming_strings).<p>Sometimes the development strategy leads to incomplete or overlapping functionality because they prefer discrete, additive changes over big, one-off overhauls. But in general, Postgres&#x27; conservative strategy has really paid off.