Re: Recovery Test Framework

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 6:04 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> "Dave Page" <dpage@pgadmin.org> writes:
>> On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 5:20 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:
>>> Well its really nobody's fault except the hacker that didn't step up to
>>> do the work. I believe all hackers have already been working diligently.
>
>> They have - but I see no reason why an imperfect process should delay
>> the hard work of developers getting into the hands of users that want
>> it for 12 months or more.
>
> How is it that this argument applies only to work not yet done, as
> opposed to work that was already done and committed over the past 12
> months?

It doesn't - but those whose work has been committed haven't suffered
due to the process.

> Really it was possible to foresee this coming months ago.
> We knew when we posted
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2008-05/msg00913.php
> that it was very ambitious to hope for working replication in 8.4.
> Then basically nothing happened all summer; Simon didn't ramp up
> his effort until around September IIRC.  He's done yeoman work
> since then, but it can hardly be surprising that we're faced with
> a slip-or-cut-the-feature decision now.

Simon wasn't working on replication. He's been doing hot standby which
has been feature-complete (bar the 2PC stuff which I believe Heikki
wanted to hack about in some way) since some time before feature
freeze. At this time it's being reviewed and refactored/debugged as a
result of the feedback he's received which is precisely what feature
freeze is for.

The async replication I believe is not in such good shape, having been
submitted in a working, but primitive form immediately prior to
feature freeze. Although I'd love to see it included in 8.4 (in a form
meeting our normal quality requirements of course), I can appreciate
it should be bumped if it's not practical to bring it up to par in a
reasonable timeframe. I don't believe that decision should be made
until it has had a good first review by a couple of committers who can
assess what might be required. If it's felt it can then be whipped
into shape with a minor delay to the release, then I think it's worth
the wait.

-- 
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK:   http://www.enterprisedb.com