Re: 8.4 release planning (was Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql: Automatic view update rules)

On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 11:23 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> writes:
> > On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 3:40 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> >> I already pointed out some pretty serious problems with the updatable
> >> views patch.  Are you claiming they are trivial to fix?
> 

> Even if the improbable happens and there's an apparently bug-free patch
> ready in two weeks, I think it would be far better project management to
> have it go in at the beginning of the 8.5 cycle than at the tail end of
> 8.4.  This is a major patch that has very real possibilities for
> breaking plain old crash recovery, even for users not using HS.  The
> idea of shipping it with only a minimal amount of testing should scare
> the pants off you.

This is my take as well. This is very real, very scary things that are
being worked on. HS should only ship after a very, very long non change
cycle (meaning no significant bugs (or refactoring) found in HS patch
for X period of time)... say after a full 8.5 dev cycle. I do not want
to commit this patch and then have to yank it out 3 months from now.

Lastly, the last time a developer told me two weeks it was 3 months.
Unless we get a written development plan that describes specifically
what, when, why and how long I am severely suspect that Heikki or Simon
have a clue on an actual deliverable time line (no offense guys).
Developers are generally overly optimistic about their delivery time
lines. 

Oh and before someone says, "Why would I write that. It is a waste of
time when I could be coding..." That was the second thing they said to
be before it took 3 months.

Joshua D. Drake



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