Re: [HACKERS] When is 7.0 going Beta?

Bruce Momjian wrote:

> OK, seeing as everyone disagrees with me...

    BADDAY.MPG?

    Wasn't  that  I completely disagreed. Just that in the actual
    case, I don't think we can make another release  out  of  the
    current tree.  And about that I'm not alone.

> Other than WAL, what else is half-completed and installed?
>
>         Foreign Keys    - Jan
>         WAL             - Vadim
>         Function args   - Tom
>         Date/Time types - Thomas
>         Optimizer       - Tom
>
>         Outer Joins     - Thomas?
>         Long Tuples     - ?
>
> I guess I am wondering, other than WAL, what makes our current state
> any worse than the time before previous beta cycles

    At  least FK. Just found myself a bug that makes things ugly.
    Forces CKECK lookup in PK table  even  if  FK  values  didn't
    change  on trigger invocation - otherwise someone could cause
    RI violation not recognized by deleting DEFAULT key values of
    FK from PK table.

    That's  IMHO  something  so  easily to trigger, that I expect
    more bugs in the stuff.

    Since FOREIGN KEY is a feature  so  many  ppl  asked  for,  I
    expect  many of them penetrating the lists if things go bad -
    what's  really  possible  for  now.  Thus,  I  wouldn't  feel
    comfortable if it goes out in this state.

> I am very hesitant about our "one big release" thing coming?  If we wait
> for everything to get done, we would never have a release.
>
> The more items in a release, the longer the beta cycle.  If you wait too
> long, you are fixing code you wrote 6 months ago, and that makes it very
> hard.  Smaller releases where the code is relatively fresh and the
> additional features minimal are cleaner, faster betas.

    Hmmm,

    yes  and no. Yes, the more items the longer beta. But no, the
    longer beta the better the release.

    The last release had the longest of all beta delays.  And  it
    was  the  best of all releases. Maybe because while feature A
    prevents release, another bug in feature H shows up while B-G
    are  silent,  but  after fixing H's bug F shout's "stop". Not
    surprising - (real) programmers experience.

    The worst thing we can do is to release  FEATURES,  that  are
    current development state and must be deprecated because they
    interfere with ongoing development. I just saw  that  someone
    added some kind of subselect inside or the targetlist - and I
    absolutely don't know if that will stand  the  test  of  time
    (i.e.  issues  WRT  the rewriter MIGHT be more important). So
    that syntax might need to be  removed/changed  in  7.0  or  a
    subsequent release again.

> The concern about a release sapping our energy when we should be adding
> code is valid, but this delays how soon users can use the items we
> _have_ finished.

    I don't see any (of the important) issues finished.

> Obviously, no one agrees with me, so it looks like May.

    At least not me.

    May?  Vadim said he could probably come back to finish WAL by
    April/May.  And I'm so bored about the tuple split  stuff  up
    to  now,  that  I  don't know if I should start on it for 7.0
    right now.  So May (optimistic) might be start of BETA -  not
    release.

    And AFAIK, if we start beta that long after our last release,
    the next wouldn't be out before July.

    That would give me enough time for  the  other  thing  (Bruce
    knows what I'm talking about).


Jan

--

#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me.                                  #
#========================================= wieck@debis.com (Jan Wieck) #