Re: 8.2 features status

Rick Gigger <rick@alpinenetworking.com> writes:
> So if you define "major features" as class A features.  In this case  
> major doesn't mean important or useful or difficult to implement,  
> just that they are the sort of features that one might be told to  
> look for when shopping for a database.  So in terms of marketing  
> PITR, two phase commit,  WIN32 support were very much "major" features.

You have a point: 8.0 and 8.1 had much more buzzword-compliant stuff
added.  The truth of the matter is that a lot of that stuff was pretty
rough-edged in actual use, and now we're starting to smooth it out and
make it more readily usable.  So in terms of *usable* PITR etc we're
only now getting there with 8.2.  But that's not a bullet point that
impresses PHBs.

> That being said I think that two of the not-yet-reviewed features are  
> just as "major" as the "major" features from the past two releases.

> 1) updatable views - I won't really use this but it just seems like  
> one of those features that people use when doing rdbms features  
> comparison charts.

Agreed, if this gets in it will be a Real Biggie.  I de-emphasized it
in my list because I haven't looked at the patch yet and so have no
idea whether it's any good, but I fully agree it's a PHB-worthy
bullet point if it works.

> 2) restartable recovery (allow checkpoints for a hot-standby server)  
> - Having the ability to have a hot standby database is a HUGE feature  
> in my book.

Again, we claimed to have hot standby in 8.1, and we sort of did, it
just didn't work all that nicely.  This will file down one seriously
rough edge, but is that a good marketing bullet point?  Probably not.
        regards, tom lane