Re: Three weeks left until feature freeze

On 7/13/06, Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com> wrote:
> I'm starting to have second thoughts about this suggestion. I was
> enthusiastic about it at the summit, but I was unaware of the sheer size
> of PL/Java. 38,000 lines of code is 8% of the total size of Postgresql
> ... for *one* PL.

Josh,

I still don't see the problem; 38K lines of code really isn't that
much. I have personal proof-of-concept projects bigger than that.
The question really is whether it's going to be maintained and by
whom. Tom, Neil, et al will not be the ones maintaining it on a
regular basis.

> Dave Cramer acquainted me with some of the difficulties of doing a Java
> PL today, and I understand why it needs to be that large. However,
> 38,000 lines of code -- much of it in a non-C language -- presents a
> possible debugging/maintenance major headache, especially if you someday
> left the project for some reason.

Again, I guess it comes down to what we're willing to let go. If we
want new users who want certain functionality in the system to be
happy, we include it. Otherwise, we do as we do now, keeping tons of
projects on pgfoundry and hoping a user doesn't just pass us by
because they installed PostgreSQL and didn't see the things they
want/need in the core. Of course, this will last until MySQL goes
ahead and adds a Java PL and the user doesn't even glance over at
us... but I guess that falls back to the argument of, "what kind of
user do we really want". Almost everyone here who's ever done
real-world consulting on PostgreSQL has run into PL/Java at some point
in time, so it is used and used often.

> This attitude does you no credit, Thomas.

That may be, but I completely understand Thomas' frustration. This
topic wasn't his idea yet his project is being bashed on pretty well.
If you know of some way to turn 38K lines of code into 5K, or can
magically translate Java code to C, he may be open to it... but
complaining about something someone spent free-time on devotedly for
several years is just going to cause problems... neither is making
arguments by comparing it to a much less complete implementation.

The point is, this is just politics without common sense. PL/Java
works and works well, if you haven't used it or PL/J, please don't
talk about it like you know it; it just spreads misinformation through
the forum. The fact is that a lot of people use PL/Java, you asked
about including it in the core, it's a stable PL, and Thomas is
willing to continue maintaining and improving it. My vote is that we
add it to the core and let him continue to do so.

As for the JVM worries, it's perfectly fine for anyone to ship the
JVM. If we wanted to include the JVM in official PostgreSQL
distributions, we can do so. Otherwise, we can just rely on the user
to have a JVM installed. Better yet, Sun supports PostgreSQL, so get
them to do a specific distribution license. There aren't that many
options so I don't see the need to plan contingencies ad nauseam.

I don't believe anyone has offered any suggestions or good
alternatives other than what we have now; keeping high-profile
projects like PL/Java on gborg/pgfoundry (which sucks IMHO).

--
Jonah H. Harris, Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1300
EnterpriseDB Corporation | fax: 732.331.1301
33 Wood Ave S, 2nd Floor | jharris(at)enterprisedb(dot)com
Iselin, New Jersey 08830 | http://www.enterprisedb.com/