> Greg Stark wrote:
>> Tom Lane wrote:
>> What I think we really need for beta, and could reasonably hope to
>> get, is a larger and better-organized beta testing effort. But we
>> are not going to get that if people are thinking about new
>> development and commit fests instead of testing what's already
>> there.
>
> Incidentally I'm not convinced that's true. The people we really
> want testing stuff are the people who have real-world test cases to
> throw at the new version and they're the people who will be most
> excited about a new release and the least interested in a
> commitfest for a version that they won't be able to run for another
> year.
I tend to agree with you there. The primary risk seems to be that
such discussions could distract people who are already working on the
release process, not that there is a mob of people who could do much
to help with release who will be misdirected into new development.
> But I would be happy getting our current process working perfectly
> before trying experiments like that.
Seriously? *Perfectly*? I'm not even sure what objective metrics
you could effectively use to measure success in the process, much
less set targets for "perfection" which must be met before trying to
solve acknowledged existing problems.
Other posts have suggested that "review fests" might be helpful in
this period. Again, it sounds to me, from other posts on this
thread, as though the primary risk is that people working on the
release could see something they couldn't resist getting drawn into
-- taking them off-task and delaying the release. The obvious
solution to that would be to create a pgsql-journeyman-peer-review
list for review fests during the release window. As long as we
we all realize that when the big dogs get around to their turn at
reviewing things after the release is out it might all have to be
redone from scratch, it seems like there could be significant benefit
at low risk.
-Kevin