> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Lane [mailto:tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us] 
> Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 12:30 PM
> To: Lamar Owen
> Cc: Dave Page; Vince Vielhaber; Ron Mayer; 
> pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org
> Subject: Re: [mail] Re: [HACKERS] Windows Build System 
> 
> 
> Lamar Owen <lamar.owen@wgcr.org> writes:
> > While I understand (and agree with) your (and Vince's) reasoning on 
> > why
> > Windows should be considered less reliable, neither of you 
> have provided a 
> > sound technical basis for why we should not hold the other 
> ports to the same 
> > standards.
> 
> The point here is that Windows is virgin territory for us.  
> We know about Unix.  When we port to a new Unix variant, we 
> are dealing with the same system APIs, and in many cases 
> large chunks of the same system code, that we've dealt with 
> before.  It's reasonable for us to have confidence that 
> Postgres will work the same on such a platform as it does on 
> other Unix variants.  And the track record of reliability 
> that we have built up across a bunch of Unix variants gives 
> us cross-pollinating confidence in all of them.
> 
> Windows shares none of that heritage.  It is the first truly 
> new port, onto a system without any Unix background, that we 
> have ever done AFAIK. Claiming that it doesn't require an 
> increased level of testing is somewhere between ridiculous 
> and irresponsible.
> 
> > I believe we should test every release as pathologically as Vince
> > has stated for Win32.
> 
> Great, go to it.  That does not alter the fact that today, 
> with our existing port history, Windows has to be treated 
> with extra suspicion.
> 
> I do not buy the argument you are making that we should treat 
> all platforms alike.  If we had a ten-year-old Windows port, 
> we could consider it as stable as all our other ten-year-old 
> Unix ports. We don't.  Given that we don't have infinite 
> resources for testing, it's simple rationality to put more 
> testing emphasis on the places that we suspect there will be 
> problems.  And if you don't suspect there will be problems on 
> Windows, you are being way too naive :-(
> 
> > Do we want to encourage Win32? (some obviously do, but I 
> don't)  Well, 
> > telling
> > people that we have tested PostgreSQL on Win32 much more 
> thoroughly than on 
> > Unix is in a way telling them that we think it is _better_ than the 
> > time-tested Unix ports ('It passed a harder test on Win32.  
> Are we afraid the 
> > Unix ports won't pass those same tests?').
> 
> If it passes the tests, good for it.  I honestly do not 
> expect that it will.  My take on this is that we want to be 
> able to document the problems in advance, rather than be blindsided.

Our port of 7.1.3 passed every test, including the dynamic loading.

I don't expect the Win32 port to be problematic.

Thu, 30 Jan 2003 14:45:46 -0800
"Dann Corbit" <DCorbit@connx.com>
Re: [mail] Re: Windows Build System 