Re: Official Freeze Date for 7.5: July 1st, 2004

On Saturday 05 June 2004 10:13, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> Lamar Owen wrote:
> >There is a reason I wrote the message a long time ago (that, I think, is
> > still in the Developer's FAQ) about how to get started in PostgreSQL
> > development. The first thing a developer  should do before getting too
> > involved in the process is to get a feel for the development culture. 

> If it were true that June 1 was the expected Beta data, then perhaps
> that should be in the FAQ too, as a counterweight to the gratuitously
> patronising advice which, had I followed it, might have resulted in my
> not making a number of contributions.

I'm sorry you consider the advice to be 'patronizing' : I can assure you it is 
not meant that way.  It was written from the point of view of someone who had 
been around the block and had seen how things work (and in my case one who 
did not do it that way, and regrets it).  And I don't think I ever 
recommended not coding while just reading mailing lists; rather, it should be 
a hand in hand process: you learn the code while you learn the community. 

> All I have asked for is a) reasonable clarity and b) reasonable notice.
> I do not see that either of those conflict with being laid-back or
> anything else above.

As Marc said, that is certainly something that could use work, since we have 
never really been clear in dates: primarily because we never have met them.

Please lighten up, that's all.  That's one thing I have found helps in this 
project, and maybe it's not something I made clear, but we are 'laid back' 
including a fair amount of humor.  A good portion of that goes on privately; 
I remember ribbing Bruce a couple of cycles back with some Biblical 
references about the signs of the times (he was in 'let's go back through the 
mailing list a few weeks and pick up TODO items and patches' mode, and I 
commented that it must be time for beta, due to the signs of the times.).

The lesson of the history of our beta 'freezes' is that the permafrost tends 
to be thin early in the beta cycle, and gets progressively thicker as the 
cycle progresses.  And we have never met the early dates, as evidenced by 
Peter Eisentraut's desire to see us freeze in March (which obviously did not 
happen). 

And my advice is to simply get some context about the process.  One gets 
context of the code; one should apply the same effort to getting the context 
of the process.  With PostgreSQL the code is large and it takes considerable 
digging to really get into contributing mode; it takes similar amounts of 
digging to merge into the process.  Is this a wrong thing to do?

And your contributions are very appreciated, by me in particular.  Fresh code 
ideas, properly applied, are always welcome.
-- 
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu