Re: new maintainer for the ODBC driver?

> Well, Byron's comment about THE maintainer (he/she should have a large
> amount of M$ application) points out that we could only continue using
> ODBC in future versions of PostgreSQL if all of us test the driver
> periodically with our installed Windows applications. I.e., Cedar might
> test the Access side, Dave might test the pgadmin side (I don't remember
> if it is written in VB or VC), Thomas might test the Applixware side and
> we test it with our BCB/ODBCExpress application as well. As Magnus and
> Adam wrote, the best thing would be to write something like Postgres'
> regression tests but I think it would be very much time---the applications
> already working with earlier versions of the driver might be used instead.
> I think that among the above things pgadmin is the most important one
> because---checking the mailing lists---it is the most widely used Windows
> application for Postgres. But I'm not sure.
> There must be (at least---and in my opinion at most) one man ("the
> patcher") who is responsible for patching the source with the new codes.
> As Byron wrote, each change should be tested by at least 4 people. So I
> don't think it would be useful to change the CVS immediately, only after
> every tester reported that the new version works well.

I'll disagree, at least a little. The ODBC driver benefited tremendously
from Byron's dedicated work. However, since he held the source code
fairly closely, it was difficult for others to step in and do
significant work.

Another example applies to you, Zoltan. Let's consider me the maintainer
of ODBC for this argument. I sat on your patches for *months* before
applying them. That is both bad and unnecessary. imho there is no reason
why the ODBC driver can not be developed similarly to the rest of the
PostgreSQL code tree, with people contributing patches, other people
testing them, the tree varying from "slightly broken" to "rock solid",
etc etc.

The important thing is that people are interested, and that contributors
take care in what they are doing. If someone has a patch that needs
testing, post it and ask for help. If it is a "no brainer", or if you
have already been able to test at least a little, then ask for it to be
applied (and if someone has the time and interest to stay on top of it
then they will likely have committer's privilege to the tree ;)

> IMHO, the ODBC driver at the current state is a great one, so it's worth
> to continue the work on it. Have you got any statistics about the number
> of people using the driver at the moment? This year most of the mails
> on the INTERFACES list are about the JDBC driver. So, sometimes I don't
> think that the ODBC driver has any future. But now, maybe... :-)

Ah, I think it is more used, and more valuable, than we realize. When
things "just work" you don't hear much about it :)

The several people who are in this thread would be a great combination
to support the ODBC driver. Byron does not have a machine to do
development, and I'm sure he would welcome the sight of his ODBC code
thriving in the future.

- Thomas