Re: Release notes introductory text

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:31:20 -0400
Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> "Joshua D. Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> writes:
> > With respect to you Kevin, your managers should wait. You don't

>
> Now I realize that you did say "test" above, but way too often I see
> this sort of argument as a justification for doing nothing and
> expecting somebody else to fix it.

Tom, I get paid to deal with it, remember? I hardly want to do nothing
and expect someone else to fix it. I wouldn't get paid :) I just believe
that the sanest course of action with my customers data, is the
conservative course of action.

That means, testing, before, during and after release. It also means
unless there is something extremely pertinent (I have several customers
threatening to fly out and strangle me personally if I don't upgrade
them to 8.3 ASAP because of HOT), I won't upgrade them until I have
confidence in production deployment.

There are varying degrees of need. Some will need 8.3 as soon as
possible, but even those I would professionally suggest they put
against a test harness of production data. Otherwise they are looking
for trouble and they are may or may not find it.

When one has been doing this as long as I have, with as many postgresql
deployments as I have... you get gun shy and only upgrade when you
must. That means dot releases, or specific business value.

I have many, many customers that will be on 8.1 for a very, very long
time to come. I will concede that it is a very hard argument for
*anyone* to be running less than 8.1.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
> regards, tom lane
>
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