

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Lane [mailto:tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us] 
> Sent: 06 May 2003 15:06
> To: Dave Page
> Cc: Bruce Momjian; PostgreSQL-development
> Subject: Re: [HACKERS] 7.4 features list 
> 
> 
> "Dave Page" <dpage@vale-housing.co.uk> writes:
> > I think we should delay. Win32, whilst not important for 
> many of the 
> > people on this list is extremely important for the project 
> itself in 
> > my opinion. It is the one major 'feature' that even 
> complete newbies 
> > pass us by because we lack it, and head straight for MySQL.
> 
> The fact that people are putting so much emphasis on 
> attracting newbies via the Windows port seems to me to be a 
> good reason *not* to delay 7.4 for it.  If we slip the 
> schedule for it, what we will have is a rushed, probably not 
> very solid port.  How many newbies will we lose permanently 
> if their first exposure to Postgres is a buggy Windows port?
> 
> I'd far rather see it done right for 7.5 than done hurriedly for 7.4.

I agree it should be done properly, but if Bruce is just talking about a
small slip to get the job done and nothing excessive then I'd rather see
us give him a month or so before we go to beta than see the Win32 port
put off for at least another 6 months.

No matter what the slip, I have no reason to think Bruce will not do a
good quality job, and we will still have however many beta releases are
needed to get it right before releasing the final code.

Regards, Dave.


Tue, 6 May 2003 15:14:57 +0100
"Dave Page" <dpage@vale-housing.co.uk>
Re: 7.4 features list 
On Tue, 2003-05-06 at 10:14, Dave Page wrote:
> No matter what the slip, I have no reason to think Bruce will not do a
> good quality job, and we will still have however many beta releases are
> needed to get it right before releasing the final code.

And, we don't have to say we fully support win32 in 7.4, we can call it
experimental or whatever.  I think the important thing is to get it in 
so that people can start working with it, evaluating, testing and
refining it.  Perhaps we don't announce full support until 7.5.


06 May 2003 16:50:24 -0400
"Matthew T. O'Connor" <matthew@zeut.net>
Re: 7.4 features list
"Matthew T. O'Connor" <matthew@zeut.net> writes:
> And, we don't have to say we fully support win32 in 7.4, we can call it
> experimental or whatever.

That might be a wise move in any case.  Management of expectations and
all that ;-)

			regards, tom lane


Tue, 06 May 2003 17:47:01 -0400
Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Re: 7.4 features list 
Apart from the already known issue of corruption on power loss (which ought
to be soluble - presumably the commercial heavyweights don't suffer from
this problem), I can't see any reason to have low expectations of the w32
port.

My experience, and apparently that of others, running the PeerDirect port,
has been entirely painfree.

I understand people's feelings about this - I'm a Unix kinda guy myself, and
will choose some flavor of it every time if given the choice. Often, I don't
have a choice, for a variety of reasons, some good and some not. That's why
the W32 port is important.

andrew


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "Matthew T. O'Connor" <matthew@zeut.net>
Cc: "Dave Page" <dpage@vale-housing.co.uk>; "Bruce Momjian"
<pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>; "PostgreSQL-development"
<pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2003 5:47 PM
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] 7.4 features list


> "Matthew T. O'Connor" <matthew@zeut.net> writes:
> > And, we don't have to say we fully support win32 in 7.4, we can call it
> > experimental or whatever.
>
> That might be a wise move in any case.  Management of expectations and
> all that ;-)
>
> regards, tom lane
>


Tue, 6 May 2003 18:25:20 -0400
"Andrew Dunstan" <andrew@dunslane.net>
Re: 7.4 features list 
Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> Apart from the already known issue of corruption on power loss (which ought
> to be soluble - presumably the commercial heavyweights don't suffer from
> this problem), I can't see any reason to have low expectations of the w32
> port.

Actually, it has been solved by SRA/Tatsuo.  Seems Win32 commit()
doesn't actually sync all files during a checkpoint, only the _open_
files.  Tatsuo's solution was to remember all files opened since the
last sync() and open/fsync each one of them to simulate sync().  I
assume I will need some of his code, but I am not there yet.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073


Tue, 6 May 2003 19:43:41 -0400 (EDT)
Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
Re: 7.4 features list
On Tue, 2003-05-06 at 18:25, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> Apart from the already known issue of corruption on power loss (which ought
> to be soluble - presumably the commercial heavyweights don't suffer from
> this problem), I can't see any reason to have low expectations of the w32
> port.
> 
> My experience, and apparently that of others, running the PeerDirect port,
> has been entirely painfree.

I don't have any long term "low expectations" of the win32 port, just
transient ones.  That is, it is a fairly radical port, more so than
moving between unix environments.  Once the win32 proves itself for a
while and we have established a history of stability and lack of data
corruption then my confidence in the win32 port will be as high as any
other database that runs on win32 (SQL Server, etc...).  To assume that
we will nail all of this on the first pass is hubris.


06 May 2003 22:39:50 -0400
"Matthew T. O'Connor" <matthew@zeut.net>
Re: 7.4 features list
"Matthew T. O'Connor" <matthew@zeut.net> writes:
> I don't have any long term "low expectations" of the win32 port, just
> transient ones.  That is, it is a fairly radical port, more so than
> moving between unix environments. ...  To assume that
> we will nail all of this on the first pass is hubris.

Yup, exzackle.  After a release or two we might think that the win32 port
is production ready (meaning as-reliable-as-you-think-the-platform-is).
It's not rational to think that the first release will be as stable on
win32 as our longtime Unix ports are --- and we'd be remiss if we don't
make that clear to users.

			regards, tom lane


Wed, 07 May 2003 00:33:17 -0400
Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Re: 7.4 features list 