Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql: Improved parallel make support

Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org> writes:
> On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 8:13 PM, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> wrote:
>> Well, it looks like $(eval) is pretty broken in 3.80, so either we
>> require 3.81 or we abandon this line of thought.

> 3.81 might be a problem for Solaris - unless I pay for a support
> contract from Oracle, I'm not going to get any updates from them,
> which means I'll have to install a custom build. Now that's no biggie
> for me, but it does see to raise the bar somewhat for users that might
> want to build from source.

For another data point, I find make 3.80 in OS X 10.4, while 10.5 and
10.6 have 3.81. 10.4 is certainly behind the curve, but Apple still
seem to be releasing security updates for it.

I was about to draw an analogy to flex -- we are now requiring a version
of flex that's roughly contemporaneous with make 3.81. However, we
don't require flex to build from a tarball, so on second thought that
situation isn't very comparable. Moving the goalposts for make would
definitely affect more people.

On the third hand, gmake is very very easy to install: if you're
capable of building Postgres from source, it's hard to believe that
gmake should scare you off. (I've installed multiple versions on my
ancient HPUX dinosaur, and it's never been any harder than ./configure,
make, make check, make install.)

And on the fourth hand, what we're buying here is pretty marginal for
developers and of no interest whatever for users.

I still think it's worth looking into whether the bug can be dodged
by shortening the eval calls. But if not, I think I'd vote for
reverting. Maybe we could revisit this in a couple of years.

regards, tom lane