Re: Getting a move on for 8.2 beta

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Bruce, Tom, all:
>
> > No rejiggering is going to get people to complete things they didn't
> > complete under the old system.
>
> It'll help the new people. A lot of people -- if not most -- submitting
> their first major patch to PostgreSQL dramatically underestimate the
> amount of fix-up that's going to be required, and assume that there won't
> be a spec discussion, which there often is. By getting them to submit a
> little at a time, *earlier*, we can avoid doing those things at the last
> minute.

That is in the developer's FAQ.

> Alternately, we can just make sure that first-time patchers have mentors
> who check progress well before feature freeze.
>
> > The plan you list above is what we did
> > for this release.
>
> No, it's not. There's a bunch of patches which we had nothing on -- not
> spec, not design draft, not anything -- until we got them on July 20th.
> Our current system is to have only one deadline, at which point you're
> expected to have 85% of the patch done and up to PostgreSQL standards.
> That's quite a bit of "jumping in with both feet" for a newbie.

Right. The developer's FAQ says they should follow a process. Making
another process doesn't mean they will follow that either.

>
> > I did try to get us additional help in reviewing. Neil was unavailable,
> > and Alvaro could only give part of his time
>
> Asking two people is not exactly an all-out effort to get reviewers.

Well, not sure what else I can do. Those are the people who used to
help out a lot.

> > It strikes me that setting feature freeze in midsummer might not be the
> > best strategy for having manpower available to review --- people tend to
> > be on vacation in August. Maybe the answer is just to move the dates a
> > bit one way or the other.
>
> We've discussed that issue before, yes. Since we're proposing a new
> roadmap process for 8.3, and will likely be dealing with a lot of major
> patches, maybe that's the release to delay?

Moving it away from summer might help, yea.

--
Bruce Momjian bruce(at)momjian(dot)us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +