Re: [CORE] RC1 blocker issues

Tom Lane wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
>> Josh Berkus wrote:
>>> Overall, I submit that our release process is broken, and that we're
>>> having trouble getting this release out because nobody is paying
>>> attention to it (of which I too have been guilty off-and-on).
>
>> We also have this issue every year, but the time from beta to release
>> has always been about three months. With the buildfarm helping out,
>> we're a couple of weeks early this time. Rejoice.
>
> I'm not sure that the process is broken, but I agree that there's been
> way too little focus on testing this time around; it seems that most of
> the chatter on pgsql-hackers since beta started has been about ideas for
> 8.3 development. Have we caused that by deciding to have a short 8.3
> devel cycle, ie, do people feel they needed a head start? If so, it's
> bad, but the damage is already done, and won't be repeated as long as we
> go back to a more normal schedule after 8.3. If there's another force
> at work, what is it?

A couple of thoughts.

1. 8.1 is good enough ;) To be perfectly honest, I haven't looked at 8.2
*at all* except for the few extremely minor things I did for contrib.
There is nothing in it that my customers *need*. There are things that
would be nice (specifically the constraint exclusion updates) but for
the most part.. meh, my customers will skip the release anyway for 8.3.

That is not to say there isn't other good stuff (GIN), just that my
customers are happy with 8.1.

2. I actually don't mind if 8.3 is a short or normal cycle. My main
concern is *when* the cycle hits. Having feature freeze right before
everyone and their mother is going to go on vacation, not to mention
into the middle of show season seems to be a problem. Thus one option
would be instead of a short 8.3 cycle, we have a long one. Stretch the
cycle out by 3 months or so, instead of shrinking.

However I know that a lot of people are trying to do *alot* of work for
8.3. I have had conversations with several individuals who want:

Recursive queries
Multi table indexes
GROUP BY/WITH
Further HOT Standby Work

These all seem like pretty big projects to do with a short lifecycle?

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake