Re: [mail] Re: Windows Build System

Lamar Owen <lamar(dot)owen(at)wgcr(dot)org> writes:
> While I understand (and agree with) your (and Vince's) reasoning on why
> Windows should be considered less reliable, neither of you have provided a
> sound technical basis for why we should not hold the other ports to the same
> standards.

The point here is that Windows is virgin territory for us. We know
about Unix. When we port to a new Unix variant, we are dealing with the
same system APIs, and in many cases large chunks of the same system
code, that we've dealt with before. It's reasonable for us to have
confidence that Postgres will work the same on such a platform as it
does on other Unix variants. And the track record of reliability that
we have built up across a bunch of Unix variants gives us
cross-pollinating confidence in all of them.

Windows shares none of that heritage. It is the first truly new port,
onto a system without any Unix background, that we have ever done AFAIK.
Claiming that it doesn't require an increased level of testing is
somewhere between ridiculous and irresponsible.

> I believe we should test every release as pathologically as Vince
> has stated for Win32.

Great, go to it. That does not alter the fact that today, with our
existing port history, Windows has to be treated with extra suspicion.

I do not buy the argument you are making that we should treat all
platforms alike. If we had a ten-year-old Windows port, we could
consider it as stable as all our other ten-year-old Unix ports.
We don't. Given that we don't have infinite resources for testing,
it's simple rationality to put more testing emphasis on the places
that we suspect there will be problems. And if you don't suspect
there will be problems on Windows, you are being way too naive :-(

> Do we want to encourage Win32? (some obviously do, but I don't) Well, telling
> people that we have tested PostgreSQL on Win32 much more thoroughly than on
> Unix is in a way telling them that we think it is _better_ than the
> time-tested Unix ports ('It passed a harder test on Win32. Are we afraid the
> Unix ports won't pass those same tests?').

If it passes the tests, good for it. I honestly do not expect that it
will. My take on this is that we want to be able to document the
problems in advance, rather than be blindsided.

regards, tom lane