Re: Alpha releases: How to tag

On Mon, Aug 03, 2009 at 11:32:48AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> writes:
> > On Mon, Aug 03, 2009 at 10:44:32AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> >> and it doesn't scale to consider the possibility that we might want
> >> to re-release an alpha after fixing some particularly evil bug. A
> >> tag without a branch won't handle that either.
>
> > Is this a use case? I truly hope nobody will try using a beta, let
> > alone an alpha, in production. Do we need to provide for such a
> > possibility? I don't recall that we've ever back-patched a beta, or
> > even a release candidate.
>
> I don't really know if it's a use-case or not; I just have a feeling
> that if we use a release procedure that guarantees we can't do it,
> we'll live to regret that.

I can see being cautious. I'm just questioning the value of this
precaution in particular.

> The bug-fixing situation for betas and RCs is a bit different
> because it's expected that there will be a compatible update
> available shortly. So you can usually assume that updating to the
> next beta/RC/release will fix whatever problems got found. Alphas
> are going to be out there on their own with absolutely no
> expectation that the next alpha is catversion-compatible.

We've bumped catversion in beta and even RC, if I recall right.

> And I doubt we'd bother generating pg_migrator builds that work for
> pairs of alpha releases.

That's an interesting idea. Shouldn't pg_migrator be mandated to work
for *any* catversion bump?

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david(dot)fetter(at)gmail(dot)com

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