Re: AW: Re: GiST for 7.1 !!

Tom Lane wrote:
>
> Um, you do realize that a contrib module that gets used as part of the
> regress tests may as well be mainstream? At least in terms of the
> portability requirements it will have to meet?

_If_ we want to have a tested GiST (and not the "probably works but
really has some nasty known bugs" one) we need to write _tests_.

To test it we need something that makes use of it.

As the only things that make use of it are extensions we need to
make use of them in tests.

So I propose the following :
1. Keep the fixed (new) gist.c in the main codebase
2. make use of the RD-index and/or Gene's tests in contrib in regression
tests
3. Tellpeople beforehand that it is not the end of the world
if GiST _tests_ fail on their platform

> I'm unhappy again. Bad enough we accepted a new feature during beta;
> now we're going to expect an absolutely virgin contrib module to work
> everywhere in order to pass regress tests?

There can be always "expected" discrepancies in regress tests, and
failing GiST test just tells people that if they want to use GiST on
their platform they must probably fix things in core code as well.
Currently they have to find it out the hard way - first lot of work
trying to "fix" their own code and only then the bright idea that
maybe it is actually broken in the core.

IMHO, giving out real test results, even negative, instead of leaving
things untested would be a honest thing to do.

-----------------
Hannu