Thus spake Tom Ivar Helbekkmo
> While we're talking of release cycles, I'd like to take the liberty to
> post something that I've been keeping around for a while, which was
> written by Dave Burgess (of *BSD FAQ fame) some time back. He was
> posting to a NetBSD mailing list, so there is wording in here that's
> specific to that environment, but there is much good, general truth
> here. With respect to the CIDR case, note especially his "get it
> right or get it out" rule. Translated to PostgreSQL 6.4 terms, we
> get: "Whoah! This wasn't what we wanted! Decide quick: do we ship
> what we have, or do we ditch it and do it right for 6.5?". We chose
> to do neither, and there's a lesson to be learned from this.
Perhaps but let me point out a few things.
- The code wasn't that late. Other things were holding up release and the inet/cidr stuff was in by the drop dead
datewe were given at the time.
- We may not have followed the release method you quote but that wasn't our release method at the time. Perhaps it
shouldbe but let's not be blinded by hindsight.
- The latest problem has turned out to be a general problem with the system. Rather than being an added bug, having
thisin now just allowed us to find an existing problem sooner than we might have otherwise.
- Because of a few late night coding sessions we now have a really cool feature and we beat the market. That's
somethingwe can use in our announcement. Putting this feature in, even if we pushed the deadline a little, didn't
weakenthe product, it strengthened it.
I don't want to sound defensive but people have been sounding negative
about having this type in. I just want to make sure that we all see
the positive side of this too.
> Let me also take this opportunity to submit a plug for "The Mythical
> Man-Month" by Frederick P. Brooks. Anyone involved in software
> development who hasn't yet read it, should. Get the 1995 special
> edition, expanded and edited from the original.
I'll second that.
--
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@{druid|vex}.net> | Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on
+1 416 424 2871 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner.