Re: [HACKERS] Re: [PORTS] RedHat6.0 & Alpha

On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, The Hermit Hacker wrote:

> Okay, let me get this straight...v6.5 was in beta for, what, 2 months?
> And it isn't until *after* v6.5.1 is released that the Alpha guys realized
> that "oops, it doesn't work"? And they have a patch that amounts to ~1/2
> the size of the current distribution to get this to work?
>
> *rofl*

Yea, I think it has turned into a bit of a crazy mess. :) I had
meant to do something about Alpha for the 6.5 release, but it came too
soon after school got out to do anything (i.e. when I actually had free
time). Then Uncle G. came along, out of the blue, and fixed everything in
a few days, but then got impatient that we had not applied his patches
after a few more days and then moved on to other conquests. That left us
with patches that worked, which we were grateful for (at least I was), but
provided unknown affects on other platforms and only against an unstable,
in flux snapshot.
Then I tried to see how many differences there were between 6.5.1
and the current snapshot, only to find that the differences were "a lot".

> The stable branch is meant to allow *minor* changes to go into it, and, if
> there are enough, to generate a new *stable* distribution. Minor changes
> are "we put && instead of || in an if statement that only shows up #ifdef
> <feature> is enabled"...or even where a bug is fixed that is based on us
> missing an error check that adds a few lines of code.

Agreed. Uncle G's alpha patches alone break that as they are 62k
in size and touch quite a few files.

> I have no problems with building a v6.5.2, or .3, or .4, if required...but
> a 3.5MB diff does not constitute a 'minor bug fix' and should be merged
> into v6.6 only...

Yea, 3.5MB does not consitute a minor bug fix (maybe for M$ it
does, but lets not go there). And that includes all changes between 6.5.1
and the current snapshot, not just the alpha ones.

So, after reading the emails that arrived while writing my last
one... If I could get my hands on Bruce's alignment patches, then by
Monday, I should be able to have a set of alpha patches against 6.5.1 that
provide a working alpha version for the time being (until 6.6 comes around
and we can clean up the alpha patches and put them in the main tree).

PS. As far as I can tell, us Alpha guys are pretty few in number,
at least those who are actually subscribed to the pgsql-ports and
pgsql-hackers email lists and try and do something for pgsql on
Linux/Alpha. Unfortuntely this "Alpha guy" often finds himself very busy
and his C skills not up to the task of hunting down obscure platform bugs
in a huge mass of code. Something along the lines of "The spirit is
willing, but the flesh is weak." :(

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| "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." |
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| Ryan Kirkpatrick | Boulder, Colorado | rkirkpat(at)nag(dot)cs(dot)colorado(dot)edu |
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