Re: Three weeks left until feature freeze

On 13-Jul-06, at 9:22 AM, Jonah H. Harris wrote:

> 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).
>

The official JDBC driver is not being shipped with the project for
exactly the same reasons, I fail to see any compelling reason to ship
either java PL.

Unless we are going to create a complete distribution with a unified
build, or at least a way to build each project (which I am in favour
of) then we leave the server to itself and all other projects exist
separately.

> --
> 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/
>