Re: 7.5 change documentation

OK, I will attempt to draw together this information as currently
stands. If this makes any sense, we can discuss what the
requirement/process is for regular maintenance (daily/weekly/monthly
etc).

Understood to mean "changes in next release (current progress)" - items
that have been completed/committed since last release, for the purpose
of informing developers/testers what's new PRIOR to full release.

Leaving unobstructed the functions of
- TODO list - a combined list of desired work items (Bruce)
- Release Notes - final list of features of a release (Bruce)

This should help alpha testing, which should allow more control of what
actually does get released (and therefore what the contents of Release
Notes should be)

Best Regards, Simon

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Lane [mailto:tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us]
> Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 20:40
> To: Neil Conway
> Cc: simon(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com; 'Jan Wieck'; 'Postgresql Hackers'
> Subject: Re: 7.5 change documentation
>
> Neil Conway <neilc(at)samurai(dot)com> writes:
> > Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> >> In theory there should be a section at the head of release.sgml
> >> mentioning the major changes done-so-far, but for various reasons
> >> this hasn't gotten installed in the 7.5 branch yet. (Look at the
> >> CVS versions during 7.4 development to see how we did it last
time.)
>
> > Well, keep in mind we didn't do it very effectively in 7.4 :-) The
> > vast majority of changes weren't recorded there, and the ones that
> > were had to be fleshed out quite a lot in the actual release notes.
>
> > The last time that someone (Peter and myself, IIRC) suggested that
we
> > really incrementally maintain the release notes during the
development
> > cycle, Bruce said that he personally finds it more comfortable to
> > summarize the CVS changelogs all at once shortly before we release
the
> > first beta. AFAIR that's where the discussion ended.
>
> It's fine with me if Bruce prefers to build the release notes directly
> from the change logs. As I saw it, the purpose of the temporary list
of
> things-done-so-far is not to be the raw material for the release
notes.
> It's to let alpha testers know about major changes that they might
want
> to test. As such, it's fine that it's incomplete.
>
> The other way we could handle this goal is to be a tad more vigorous
about
> checking off items as "done" in the TODO list. However, Bruce
generally
> doesn't bother to make a new entry in the TODO list if someone does
> something that wasn't in the list to begin with, and so I'm not sure
> it's the right vehicle.
>
> regards, tom lane