Re: Updates of SE-PostgreSQL 8.4devel patches (r1704)

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com>
Cc: jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com, Hannu Krosing <hannu(at)2ndQuadrant(dot)com>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>, KaiGai Kohei <kaigai(at)kaigai(dot)gr(dot)jp>, Heikki Linnakangas <heikki(dot)linnakangas(at)enterprisedb(dot)com>, KaiGai Kohei <kaigai(at)ak(dot)jp(dot)nec(dot)com>, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us>, Joshua Brindle <method(at)manicmethod(dot)com>, Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net>, Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net>, PG Hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>, Jaime Casanova <jcasanov(at)systemguards(dot)com(dot)ec>
Subject: Re: Updates of SE-PostgreSQL 8.4devel patches (r1704)
Date: 2009-03-10 04:23:44
Message-ID: 21503.1236659024@sss.pgh.pa.us
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Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com> writes:
>> Frankly, what we have here is a large patch, with insanely difficult
>> correctness requirements, written by a Postgres newbie. If it doesn't
>> scare you, you haven't been paying attention. We have a long track
>> record of problems with patches written by people who thought they were
>> ready to do major backend hacking without having bitten off some smaller
>> chunks first.

> If that was the case, why didn't you say it 4 months ago? It seems
> rather unfair to Kaigai and everyone else who worked on it to be getting
> cold feet about the entire concept after several months of debugging.

Josh, I've had cold feet about this patch from day one, and have not
been very shy about expressing it, for instance here
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2008-05/msg00122.php
here
http://archives.postgresql.org//pgsql-hackers/2008-09/msg01662.php
and here
http://archives.postgresql.org//pgsql-hackers/2009-01/msg01928.php
(those are just samples from long threads in each case).

Despite all that arm-waving, no one besides KaiGai-san has really
stepped up to work on it. That leaves me not only with worries about
the patch itself, but with an extremely low estimate of the community's
interest in it. And it is too big, complicated, and risky to go in
if there's not strong community support for it.

regards, tom lane

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