Re: [HACKERS] A small problem with the new inet and cidr types

Thus spake Tom Ivar Helbekkmo
> While we're talking of release cycles, I'd like to take the liberty to
> post something that I've been keeping around for a while, which was
> written by Dave Burgess (of *BSD FAQ fame) some time back. He was
> posting to a NetBSD mailing list, so there is wording in here that's
> specific to that environment, but there is much good, general truth
> here. With respect to the CIDR case, note especially his "get it
> right or get it out" rule. Translated to PostgreSQL 6.4 terms, we
> get: "Whoah! This wasn't what we wanted! Decide quick: do we ship
> what we have, or do we ditch it and do it right for 6.5?". We chose
> to do neither, and there's a lesson to be learned from this.

Perhaps but let me point out a few things.

- The code wasn't that late. Other things were holding up release
and the inet/cidr stuff was in by the drop dead date we were given
at the time.

- We may not have followed the release method you quote but that
wasn't our release method at the time. Perhaps it should be
but let's not be blinded by hindsight.

- The latest problem has turned out to be a general problem with
the system. Rather than being an added bug, having this in now
just allowed us to find an existing problem sooner than we might
have otherwise.

- Because of a few late night coding sessions we now have a really
cool feature and we beat the market. That's something we can use in
our announcement. Putting this feature in, even if we pushed the
deadline a little, didn't weaken the product, it strengthened it.

I don't want to sound defensive but people have been sounding negative
about having this type in. I just want to make sure that we all see
the positive side of this too.

> Let me also take this opportunity to submit a plug for "The Mythical
> Man-Month" by Frederick P. Brooks. Anyone involved in software
> development who hasn't yet read it, should. Get the 1995 special
> edition, expanded and edited from the original.

I'll second that.

--
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy(at){druid|vex}.net> | Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on
+1 416 424 2871 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner.