wrapping up this CommitFest (was Re: knngist - 0.8)
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 1:35 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
Given that it is a contrib module, I personally wouldn't object to it
getting patched later, like during alpha or beta. But somebody's got
to do the work, and I've got a dozen higher-priority problems right now.Well, we can argue about whether it's too late for 9.1 if and when a
patch shows up. Right now we don't have that problem.We do now ...
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2011-03/msg00038.phpSince we appear to be still holding the commitfest open for Sync Rep,
I guess this ought to get reviewed.
Or else we should close the CommitFest and cut alpha4. Anyone have an
opinion on which way to go?
I think it's fair to say that Simon is working pretty actively on Sync
Rep and that the bug count is probably dropping rapidly. It seems a
shame to push sync rep out to 9.2 in that context. On the other hand,
the patch wasn't done at the beginning of the CommitFest, it wasn't
done at the scheduled end of the CommitFest, and it's still not done
now two weeks after the scheduled end of the CommitFest. If it gets
committed O(now), it's probably going to still have bugs and design
problems that will take at least a few more weeks to shake out, which
will directly add to the length of time that it takes to actually get
the release out the door.
I could go either way on this one.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
Since we appear to be still holding the commitfest open for Sync Rep,
I guess this ought to get reviewed.Or else we should close the CommitFest and cut alpha4. Anyone have an
opinion on which way to go?
I think we can give Sync Rep until the 15th, given the pace of work on
it. It is a major feature, and a complicated one.
We could even cut a pre-synch-rep Alpha4 *now*, and follow that with a
post-synch-rep Alpha5 sometime around April 1.
That'll put us in a good position for beta, and also to see what
specific issue SynR adds.
--
-- Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://www.pgexperts.com
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
Since we appear to be still holding the commitfest open for Sync Rep,
I guess this ought to get reviewed.Or else we should close the CommitFest and cut alpha4. Anyone have an
opinion on which way to go?I think we can give Sync Rep until the 15th, given the pace of work on
it. It is a major feature, and a complicated one.
Sure, but there are other features, major and minor, that we have
postponed to 9.2. In the normal course of events, sync rep would have
been marked Returned with Feedback a month ago. I like the feature,
but I have to say I'm not very pleased that we seem to have fallen
into a pattern of believing that some major features are somehow
exempted from the scheduling deadline and others are not. I am sure
there are plenty of other people who would have liked a six week
extension of the usual CommitFest deadlines too, but they didn't get
it (and for the most part, were pretty gracious about that).
We could even cut a pre-synch-rep Alpha4 *now*, and follow that with a
post-synch-rep Alpha5 sometime around April 1.That'll put us in a good position for beta, and also to see what
specific issue SynR adds.
Frankly, I think we should be aiming to get a beta out in April, not
another alpha.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 20:26, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
Since we appear to be still holding the commitfest open for Sync Rep,
I guess this ought to get reviewed.Or else we should close the CommitFest and cut alpha4. Anyone have an
opinion on which way to go?I think we can give Sync Rep until the 15th, given the pace of work on
it. It is a major feature, and a complicated one.Sure, but there are other features, major and minor, that we have
postponed to 9.2. In the normal course of events, sync rep would have
been marked Returned with Feedback a month ago. I like the feature,
but I have to say I'm not very pleased that we seem to have fallen
into a pattern of believing that some major features are somehow
exempted from the scheduling deadline and others are not. I am sure
there are plenty of other people who would have liked a six week
extension of the usual CommitFest deadlines too, but they didn't get
it (and for the most part, were pretty gracious about that).We could even cut a pre-synch-rep Alpha4 *now*, and follow that with a
post-synch-rep Alpha5 sometime around April 1.That'll put us in a good position for beta, and also to see what
specific issue SynR adds.Frankly, I think we should be aiming to get a beta out in April, not
another alpha.
That would be good, but in order to get there, +1 for cutting a new
alpha even if syncrep isn't ready for it yet. That way we can at least
get some more testing on all the non-syncrep code.
That is assuming that cutting an alpha release isn't all that much
work, but IIRC it's not. (Hey, I know it's not much work for me, but
someone who actually does the work should comment on the total
amount...)
--
Magnus Hagander
Me: http://www.hagander.net/
Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
I think we can give Sync Rep until the 15th, given the pace of work on
it. �It is a major feature, and a complicated one.
Sure, but there are other features, major and minor, that we have
postponed to 9.2. In the normal course of events, sync rep would have
been marked Returned with Feedback a month ago. I like the feature,
but I have to say I'm not very pleased that we seem to have fallen
into a pattern of believing that some major features are somehow
exempted from the scheduling deadline and others are not.
Yes. What are the rest of us supposed to do for the next two weeks,
twiddle our thumbs?
Personally I've got a couple of days' worth of cleanup tasks before I'd
want to see us cut an alpha anyway, especially if we're going to try
to accept the btree_gist KNNgist patch. Two weeks is too much though.
I'd say that if there's a plausible chance that Sync Rep will be
committable by the end of *this* week (and I mean Friday not Sunday),
I'm willing to wait that long for it. Otherwise, it's 9.2 material.
Frankly, I think we should be aiming to get a beta out in April, not
another alpha.
Quite.
regards, tom lane
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
I think we can give Sync Rep until the 15th, given the pace of work on
it. It is a major feature, and a complicated one.Sure, but there are other features, major and minor, that we have
postponed to 9.2. In the normal course of events, sync rep would have
been marked Returned with Feedback a month ago. I like the feature,
but I have to say I'm not very pleased that we seem to have fallen
into a pattern of believing that some major features are somehow
exempted from the scheduling deadline and others are not.Yes. What are the rest of us supposed to do for the next two weeks,
twiddle our thumbs?Personally I've got a couple of days' worth of cleanup tasks before I'd
want to see us cut an alpha anyway, especially if we're going to try
to accept the btree_gist KNNgist patch. Two weeks is too much though.I'd say that if there's a plausible chance that Sync Rep will be
committable by the end of *this* week (and I mean Friday not Sunday),
I'm willing to wait that long for it. Otherwise, it's 9.2 material.
I am quite sure that Simon will be able to get something committed
ahead of whatever deadline we choose to set. Whether that commit will
be up to our usual standards is another question altogether. The last
version posted to the list was trivial to break, and that was several
weeks ago.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:38 PM, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote:
Frankly, I think we should be aiming to get a beta out in April, not
another alpha.That would be good, but in order to get there, +1 for cutting a new
alpha even if syncrep isn't ready for it yet. That way we can at least
get some more testing on all the non-syncrep code.That is assuming that cutting an alpha release isn't all that much
work, but IIRC it's not. (Hey, I know it's not much work for me, but
someone who actually does the work should comment on the total
amount...)
As I understand it, it requires only the steps described here:
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Alpha_release_process
That all looks pretty straightforward, assuming you can log into
developer.postgresql.org, which I can't. I think I remember having an
ftp account at some point, but it's not accepting connections on port
22, so there is doubtless some secret sauce I am missing here.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
As I understand it, it requires only the steps described here:
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Alpha_release_process
That all looks pretty straightforward, assuming you can log into
developer.postgresql.org, which I can't. I think I remember having an
ftp account at some point, but it's not accepting connections on port
22, so there is doubtless some secret sauce I am missing here.
Ideally, we want to have some binaries/packages for the "final alpha".
Those broaden testing considerably.
We don't need them for all platforms, of course. Really, the critical
ones for testing are Windows and OSX. Linux/BSD/Solaris users are
pretty good at make/make install.
--
-- Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://www.pgexperts.com
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
Ideally, we want to have some binaries/packages for the "final alpha".
Those broaden testing considerably.
When we have a version that needs that treatment, we can simply call
it beta1. If it's too half-baked for that, then I don't see the point
in going to a lot of trouble to build packages.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
I'd say that if there's a plausible chance that Sync Rep will be
committable by the end of *this* week (and I mean Friday not Sunday),
I'm willing to wait that long for it. �Otherwise, it's 9.2 material.
I am quite sure that Simon will be able to get something committed
ahead of whatever deadline we choose to set. Whether that commit will
be up to our usual standards is another question altogether. The last
version posted to the list was trivial to break, and that was several
weeks ago.
Yeah, there's that. It's difficult to believe that anything committed
in the very short term wouldn't be rushed to completion rather than
really ready. That holds whether the deadline is this week or two
weeks out.
The other issue is that, as Robert says, we have already cut Sync Rep
more slack than any other patch in the commitfest. It does not seem
fair to hold up the release process another week or two for it, even
assuming that we get a high-quality feature at the end of that.
If we do hold up the release, I'll probably go back and reopen the
postgresql_fdw patch as well as btree_gist. So I won't run out of
things to do. But I'm not terribly satisfied with the decision-making
process here.
regards, tom lane
On 3/1/11 11:58 AM, Tom Lane wrote:
If we do hold up the release, I'll probably go back and reopen the
postgresql_fdw patch as well as btree_gist. So I won't run out of
things to do. But I'm not terribly satisfied with the decision-making
process here.
OK, well, we gave it an extra 15 days, which was all we promised.
I'm ok with closing things as of the end of the 15 days, say Thursday or
Friday.
--
-- Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://www.pgexperts.com
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
Ideally, we want to have some binaries/packages for the "final alpha".
Those broaden testing considerably.
When we have a version that needs that treatment, we can simply call
it beta1. If it's too half-baked for that, then I don't see the point
in going to a lot of trouble to build packages.
We (or more precisely EDB) made Windows installers for alpha1:
http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services-training/pgdevdownload
And IIRC they did installers for alphas in the 9.0 cycle too. And
certainly Devrim and others have been building binary packages for
alphas. If this alpha is so much less baked than the previous ones
that that's not worthwhile, there's something very wrong with the
process. The last alpha ought to be in testable condition.
regards, tom lane
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 3:08 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
Ideally, we want to have some binaries/packages for the "final alpha".
Those broaden testing considerably.When we have a version that needs that treatment, we can simply call
it beta1. If it's too half-baked for that, then I don't see the point
in going to a lot of trouble to build packages.We (or more precisely EDB) made Windows installers for alpha1:
http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services-training/pgdevdownload
And IIRC they did installers for alphas in the 9.0 cycle too. And
certainly Devrim and others have been building binary packages for
alphas. If this alpha is so much less baked than the previous ones
that that's not worthwhile, there's something very wrong with the
process. The last alpha ought to be in testable condition.
Oh, really? OK. I wasn't aware that alphas got installers.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:58 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
I'd say that if there's a plausible chance that Sync Rep will be
committable by the end of *this* week (and I mean Friday not Sunday),
I'm willing to wait that long for it. Otherwise, it's 9.2 material.I am quite sure that Simon will be able to get something committed
ahead of whatever deadline we choose to set. Whether that commit will
be up to our usual standards is another question altogether. The last
version posted to the list was trivial to break, and that was several
weeks ago.Yeah, there's that. It's difficult to believe that anything committed
in the very short term wouldn't be rushed to completion rather than
really ready. That holds whether the deadline is this week or two
weeks out.
Yep.
The other issue is that, as Robert says, we have already cut Sync Rep
more slack than any other patch in the commitfest. It does not seem
fair to hold up the release process another week or two for it, even
assuming that we get a high-quality feature at the end of that.
Yep.
If we do hold up the release, I'll probably go back and reopen the
postgresql_fdw patch as well as btree_gist. So I won't run out of
things to do. But I'm not terribly satisfied with the decision-making
process here.
Well, we haven't actually made a decision here yet. We're just
talking about what decision we ought to make. Frankly, I avoided
trying to mark Sync Rep Returned with Feedback mostly for the reason
that I knew Simon would object, and his commit bit gives him a certain
degree of latitude to ignore the CF process anyway. But I am really
not that keen on having Sync Rep go in and then spending another month
fixing all the bugs, and that's what I think will happen.
Bruce has been going through the open items for the past several weeks
(at least) and tells me that he hasn't found very much. I'm not sure
what your thought is on what's required to get us from here to beta,
but I am thinking it could be done in a few weeks. With a concerted
effort and some sustained focus, I don't see why we could get this
release out the door in, say, three months. Taking in a feature
that's going to take another month to sort out is going to push that
out, and I am really not excited about another round of
spend-all-summer-waiting-for-people-to-get-back-from-vacation-and-release-in-September.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Tue, 2011-03-01 at 14:26 -0500, Robert Haas wrote:
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
Since we appear to be still holding the commitfest open for Sync Rep,
I guess this ought to get reviewed.Or else we should close the CommitFest and cut alpha4. Anyone have an
opinion on which way to go?I think we can give Sync Rep until the 15th, given the pace of work on
it. It is a major feature, and a complicated one.Sure, but there are other features, major and minor, that we have
postponed to 9.2. In the normal course of events, sync rep would have
been marked Returned with Feedback a month ago. I like the feature,
but I have to say I'm not very pleased that we seem to have fallen
into a pattern of believing that some major features are somehow
exempted from the scheduling deadline and others are not.
Neither am I, I mean, we were actively fixing and bringing Fk-Locks up
to date and we got pushed but sync rep gets in? We may have had fk-locks
baked by now. I want syncrep as much as the next person, but this isn't
really fair to any of the other submitters.
JD
--
PostgreSQL.org Major Contributor
Command Prompt, Inc: http://www.commandprompt.com/ - 509.416.6579
Consulting, Training, Support, Custom Development, Engineering
http://twitter.com/cmdpromptinc | http://identi.ca/commandprompt
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 3:01 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
On 3/1/11 11:58 AM, Tom Lane wrote:
If we do hold up the release, I'll probably go back and reopen the
postgresql_fdw patch as well as btree_gist. So I won't run out of
things to do. But I'm not terribly satisfied with the decision-making
process here.OK, well, we gave it an extra 15 days, which was all we promised.
I'm ok with closing things as of the end of the 15 days, say Thursday or
Friday.
That's still missing the point, which is that the code is unlikely to
be up to our usual standards at that point.
So far I don't hear anyone arguing strongly that we should accept sync
rep in 9.1, and several people arguing the reverse.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> writes:
I'm ok with closing things as of the end of the 15 days, say Thursday or
Friday.
It might be a good idea to make a list of what we have left to do before
we can wrap an alpha. Here are some things on my list. Not all of them
are necessarily release blockers, but we need to discuss which ones are:
* Regression test failures from recent plpython patches. These are
affecting enough machines to make them "must fix before alpha", IMO.
There are some variations in error message wording, which are not too
terrible but also not exactly hard to fix. The python assert failure
that some Fedora machines are reporting is considerably more disturbing.
* Collation-related regression failure on buildfarm member pika. This
is clearly a bug we need to identify, but maybe we can ship the alpha
without a fix --- for one thing, getting more than one report of the
problem would be helpful.
* Collation-related changes still needed in contrib/citext. If we don't
have this done before alpha4, I'm afraid we'll have to generate a 1.1
update script to fix it for alpha4 users. I'd just as soon not deal
with that overhead.
* Rearrange pg_proc and pg_operator comments as suggested here:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-docs/2010-10/msg00041.php
While this isn't a "must fix", the very end of a development cycle
is clearly the best time for such a patch, since at any other time
there are going to be a larger number of pending patches that would
have to be adjusted. So I'd kind of like to get this done, if I can
spare a day for it.
* Generate alpha release notes. This is at least half a day's work
for somebody, I think, even with our fairly low standards for alpha
release notes.
There are other things I'd like to do, like review and perhaps commit
the btree_gist patch, but they're not at the level of "must fix".
Any other "must fix" items on people's minds?
regards, tom lane
That's still missing the point, which is that the code is unlikely to
be up to our usual standards at that point.
I was talking about "when do we close the CF and start building an
alpha", not synch rep particularly. Tom said he wants until Friday
anyway just for some cleanup.
--
-- Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://www.pgexperts.com
On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 3:36 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
That's still missing the point, which is that the code is unlikely to
be up to our usual standards at that point.I was talking about "when do we close the CF and start building an
alpha", not synch rep particularly. Tom said he wants until Friday
anyway just for some cleanup.
That response is just dodging the hard question, so whatever. Tom's
cleanup is not going to break things, or at least it's going to fix
more than it breaks on net. Sync rep, on the other hand, is going to
do the opposite, probably by a large margin.
--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
Bruce has been going through the open items for the past several weeks
(at least) and tells me that he hasn't found very much. I'm not sure
what your thought is on what's required to get us from here to beta,
but I am thinking it could be done in a few weeks. With a concerted
effort and some sustained focus, I don't see why we could get this
release out the door in, say, three months. Taking in a feature
that's going to take another month to sort out is going to push that
out, and I am really not excited about another round of
spend-all-summer-waiting-for-people-to-get-back-from-vacation-and-release-in-September.
Yeah, it would be really nice to get the release out in June rather than
September. If we wait any longer for Sync Rep I'm pretty sure it's
going to be the latter not the former.
See my nearby message for a start at a list of what we "must" do to
get to alpha4. Any features we want to cram in at this stage go on
top of that.
regards, tom lane
