Re: Improving connection scalability: GetSnapshotData()

On Wed, Apr 8, 2020 at 9:27 AM Jonathan S. Katz <jkatz(at)postgresql(dot)org> wrote:
> One of the features of RMT responsibilities[1] is to be "hands off" as
> much as possible, so perhaps a reverse ask: how would people feel about
> this patch going into PG13, knowing that the commit would come after the
> feature freeze date?

Letting something be committed after feature freeze, or at any other
time, is just a risk vs. reward trade-off. Every patch carries some
chance of breaking stuff or making things worse. And every patch has a
chance of making something better that people care about.

On general principle, I would categorize this as a moderate-risk
patch. It doesn't change SQL syntax like, e.g. MERGE, nor does it
touch the on-disk format, like, e.g. INSERT .. ON CONFLICT UPDATE. The
changes are relatively localized, unlike, e.g. parallel query. Those
are all things that reduce risk. On the other hand, it's a brand new
patch which has not been thoroughly reviewed by anyone. Moreover,
shakedown time will be minimal because we're so late in the release
cycle. if it has subtle synchronization problems or if it regresses
performance badly in some cases, we might not find out about any of
that until after release. While in theory we could revert it any time,
since no SQL syntax or on-disk format is affected, in practice it will
be difficult to do that if it's making life better for some people and
worse for others.

I don't know what the right thing to do is. I agree with everyone who
says this is a very important problem, and I have the highest respect
for Andres's technical ability. On the other hand, I have been around
here long enough to know that deciding whether to allow late commits
on the basis of how much we like the feature is a bad plan, because it
takes into account only the upside of a commit, and ignores the
possible downside risk. Typically, the commit is late because the
feature was rushed to completion at the last minute, which can have an
effect on quality. I can say, having read through the patches
yesterday, that they don't suck, but I can't say that they're fully
correct. That's not to say that we shouldn't decide to take them, but
it is a concern to be taken seriously. We have made mistakes before in
what we shipped that had serious implications for many users and for
the project; we should all be wary of making more such mistakes. I am
not trying to say that solving problems and making stuff better is NOT
important, just that every coin has two sides.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company