Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 16:26, Robert Haas wrote: > And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of > last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more > feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you > did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush > of last-minute commits is bad for the project. > I think some part of this rush of commits could also be explained as a form of entrainment[1]. Only patches reasonably close to commit will get picked up with extra attention to get them ready before the deadline. After the release hammer drops, the pool of remaining patches will have few patches close to commit remaining. And to make matters worse the attention of working on them will be spread thinner. When repeated, this pattern can be self reinforcing. If this hypothesis is true, maybe some forces could be introduced to counteract this natural tendency. I don't have any bright ideas on how exactly yet. Ants [1] Emergent synchronization of interacting oscillators, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injection_locking#Entrainment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrainment_(biomusicology)
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Tue, Apr 9, 2024 at 5:16 PM Bruce Momjian wrote: > Committing code is a hard job, no question. However, committers have to > give up the idea that they should wait for brilliant ideas before > finalizing patches. If you come up with a better idea later, great, but > don't wait to finalize patches. Completely agreed. If your ideas are too bad, you should just give up. But if they're basically fine and you're just waiting for inspiration to strike from above, you might as well get on with it. If it turns out that you've broken something, well, that sucks, but it's still better to get that out of the way in January ... or November ... or August ... rather than waiting until March or April. -- Robert Haas EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 10:41:17AM -0400, Robert Treat wrote: > Unfortunately many humans are hardwired towards procrastination and > last minute heroics (it's one reason why deadline driven development > works even though in the long run it tends to be bad practice), and > historically was one of the driving factors in why we started doing > commitfests in the first place (you should have seen the mad dash of > commits before we had that process), so ISTM that it's not completely > avoidable... > > That said, are you suggesting that the feature freeze deadline be > random, and also held in secret by the RMT, only to be announced after > the freeze time has passed? This feels weird, but might apply enough > deadline related pressure while avoiding last minute shenanigans. Committing code is a hard job, no question. However, committers have to give up the idea that they should wait for brilliant ideas before finalizing patches. If you come up with a better idea later, great, but don't wait to finalize patches. I used to write college papers much too late because I expected some brilliant idea to come to me, and it rarely happened. I learned to write the paper with the ideas I had, and if I come up with a better idea later, I can add it to the end. -- Bruce Momjian https://momjian.us EDB https://enterprisedb.com Only you can decide what is important to you.
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 09:32:14PM +0200, Jelte Fennema-Nio wrote: > I'll sketch a situation: There's a big patch that some non-committer > submitted that has been sitting on the mailinglist for 6 months or > more, only being reviewed by other non-committers, which the submitter > quickly addresses. Then in the final commit fest it is finally > reviewed by a committer, and they say it requires significant changes. > Right now, the submitter can decide to quickly address those changes, > and hope to keep the attention of this committer, to hopefully get it > merged before the deadline after probably a few more back and forths. > But this new rule would mean that those significant changes would be a > reason not to put it in the upcoming release. Which I expect would > first of all really feel like a slap in the face to the submitter, > because it's not their fault that those changes were only requested in > the last commit fest. This would then likely result in the submitter > not following up quickly (why make time right at this moment, if > you're suddenly going to have another full year), which would then > cause the committer to lose context of the patch and thus interest in > the patch. And then finally getting into the exact same situation next > year in the final commit fest, when some other committer didn't agree > with the redesign of the first one and request a new one pushing it > another year. Yes, I can see this happening. :-( -- Bruce Momjian https://momjian.us EDB https://enterprisedb.com Only you can decide what is important to you.
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On 2024-04-08 Mo 19:26, Tom Lane wrote: Andrew Dunstan writes: I quite like the triage idea. But I think there's also a case for being more a bit more flexible with those patches we don't throw out. A case close to my heart: I'd have been very sad if the NESTED piece of JSON_TABLE hadn't made the cut, which it did with a few hours to spare, and I would not have been alone, far from it. I'd have been happy to give Amit a few more days or a week if he needed it, for a significant headline feature. I know there will be those who say it's the thin end of the wedge and rulez is rulez, but this is my view. You've certainly been around the project long enough to remember the times in the past when we let the schedule slip for "one more big patch". It just about never worked out well, so I'm definitely in favor of a hard deadline. The trick is to control the tendency to push in patches that are only almost-ready in order to nominally meet the deadline. (I don't pretend to be immune from that temptation myself, but I think I resisted it better than some this year.) If we want to change how things are working I suspect we probably need something a lot more radical than any of the suggestions I've seen floating around. I don't know what that might be, but ISTM we're not thinking boldly enough. cheers andrew -- Andrew Dunstan EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On 4/9/24 11:25, Matthias van de Meent wrote: > On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 20:15, Tomas Vondra > wrote: >> >> >> On 4/8/24 17:48, Matthias van de Meent wrote: >>> On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 17:21, Tomas Vondra >>> wrote: Maybe it'd be better to start by expanding the existing rule about not committing patches introduced for the first time in the last CF. >>> >>> I don't think adding more hurdles about what to include into the next >>> release is a good solution. Why the March CF, and not earlier? Or >>> later? How about unregistered patches? Changes to the docs? Bug fixes? >>> The March CF already has a submission deadline of "before march", so >>> that already puts a soft limit on the patches considered for the april >>> deadline. >>> What if we said that patches in the last CF must not go through significant changes, and if they do it'd mean the patch is moved to the next CF? >>> >>> I also think there is already a big issue with a lack of interest in >>> getting existing patches from non-committers committed, reducing the >>> set of patches that could be considered is just cheating the numbers >>> and discouraging people from contributing. For one, I know I have >>> motivation issues keeping up with reviewing other people's patches >>> when none (well, few, as of this CF) of my patches get reviewed >>> materially and committed. I don't see how shrinking the window of >>> opportunity for significant review from 9 to 7 months is going to help >>> there. >>> >> >> I 100% understand how frustrating the lack of progress can be, and I >> agree we need to do better. I tried to move a number of stuck patches >> this CF, and I hope (and plan) to do more of this in the future. > > Thanks in advance. > >> But I don't quite see how would this rule modification change the >> situation for non-committers. AFAIK we already have the rule that >> (complex) patches should not appear in the last CF for the first time, >> and I'd argue that a substantial rework of a complex patch is not that >> far from a completely new patch. Sure, the reworks may be based on a >> thorough review, so there's a lot of nuance. But still, is it possible >> to properly review if it gets reworked at the very end of the CF? > > Possible? Probably, if there is a good shared understanding of why the > previous patch version's approach didn't work well, and if the next > approach is well understood as well. But it's not likely, that I'll > agree with. > > But the main issue I have with your suggestion is that the March > commitfest effectively contains all new patches starting from January, > and the leftovers not committed by February. If we start banning all > new patches and those with significant reworks from the March > commitfest, then combined with the lack of CF in May there wouldn't be > any chance for new patches in the first half of the year, and an > effective block on rewrites for 6 months- the next CF is only in July. > Sure, there is a bit of leeway there, as some patches get committed > before the commitfest they're registered in is marked active, but our > development workflow is already quite hostile to incidental > contributor's patches [^0], and increasing the periods in which > authors shouldn't expect their patches to be reviewed due to a major > release that's planned in >5 months is probably not going to help the > case. > But I don't think I suggested to ban such patches from the March CF entirely. Surely those patches can still be submitted, reviewed, and even reworked in the last CF. All I said is it might be better to treat those patches as not committable by default. Sorry if that wasn't clear enough ... Would this be an additional restriction? I'm not quite sure. Surely if the intent is to only commit patches that we agree are in "sufficiently good" shape, and getting them into such shape requires time & reviews, this would not be a significant change. FWIW I'm not a huge fan of hard unbreakable rules, so there should be some leeway when justified, but the bar would be somewhat higher (clear consensus, RMT having a chance to say no, ...). >>> So, I think that'd be counter-productive, as this would get the >>> perverse incentive to band-aid over (architectural) issues to limit >>> churn inside the patch, rather than fix those issues in a way that's >>> appropriate for the project as a whole. >>> >> >> Surely those architectural shortcomings should be identified in a review >> - which however requires time to do properly, and thus is an argument >> for ensuring there's enough time for such review (which is in direct >> conflict with the last-minute crush, IMO). >> >> Once again, I 100% agree we need to do better in handling patches from >> non-committers, absolutely no argument there. But does it require this >> last-minute crush? I don't think so, it can't be at the expense of >> proper review and getting it right. > > Agreed on this, 100%, but as mentioned above, the March commitfest
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 20:15, Tomas Vondra wrote: > > > On 4/8/24 17:48, Matthias van de Meent wrote: >> On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 17:21, Tomas Vondra >> wrote: >>> >>> Maybe it'd be better to start by expanding the existing rule about not >>> committing patches introduced for the first time in the last CF. >> >> I don't think adding more hurdles about what to include into the next >> release is a good solution. Why the March CF, and not earlier? Or >> later? How about unregistered patches? Changes to the docs? Bug fixes? >> The March CF already has a submission deadline of "before march", so >> that already puts a soft limit on the patches considered for the april >> deadline. >> >>> What if >>> we said that patches in the last CF must not go through significant >>> changes, and if they do it'd mean the patch is moved to the next CF? >> >> I also think there is already a big issue with a lack of interest in >> getting existing patches from non-committers committed, reducing the >> set of patches that could be considered is just cheating the numbers >> and discouraging people from contributing. For one, I know I have >> motivation issues keeping up with reviewing other people's patches >> when none (well, few, as of this CF) of my patches get reviewed >> materially and committed. I don't see how shrinking the window of >> opportunity for significant review from 9 to 7 months is going to help >> there. >> > > I 100% understand how frustrating the lack of progress can be, and I > agree we need to do better. I tried to move a number of stuck patches > this CF, and I hope (and plan) to do more of this in the future. Thanks in advance. > But I don't quite see how would this rule modification change the > situation for non-committers. AFAIK we already have the rule that > (complex) patches should not appear in the last CF for the first time, > and I'd argue that a substantial rework of a complex patch is not that > far from a completely new patch. Sure, the reworks may be based on a > thorough review, so there's a lot of nuance. But still, is it possible > to properly review if it gets reworked at the very end of the CF? Possible? Probably, if there is a good shared understanding of why the previous patch version's approach didn't work well, and if the next approach is well understood as well. But it's not likely, that I'll agree with. But the main issue I have with your suggestion is that the March commitfest effectively contains all new patches starting from January, and the leftovers not committed by February. If we start banning all new patches and those with significant reworks from the March commitfest, then combined with the lack of CF in May there wouldn't be any chance for new patches in the first half of the year, and an effective block on rewrites for 6 months- the next CF is only in July. Sure, there is a bit of leeway there, as some patches get committed before the commitfest they're registered in is marked active, but our development workflow is already quite hostile to incidental contributor's patches [^0], and increasing the periods in which authors shouldn't expect their patches to be reviewed due to a major release that's planned in >5 months is probably not going to help the case. > > So, I think that'd be counter-productive, as this would get the > > perverse incentive to band-aid over (architectural) issues to limit > > churn inside the patch, rather than fix those issues in a way that's > > appropriate for the project as a whole. > > > > Surely those architectural shortcomings should be identified in a review > - which however requires time to do properly, and thus is an argument > for ensuring there's enough time for such review (which is in direct > conflict with the last-minute crush, IMO). > > Once again, I 100% agree we need to do better in handling patches from > non-committers, absolutely no argument there. But does it require this > last-minute crush? I don't think so, it can't be at the expense of > proper review and getting it right. Agreed on this, 100%, but as mentioned above, the March commitfest contains more than just "last minute crushes" [^1]. I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bathwater here. > A complex patch needs to be > submitted early in the cycle, not in the last CF. If it's submitted > early, but does not receive enough interest/reviews, I think we need to > fix & improve that - not to rework/push it at the very end. Agree on all this, too. -Matthias [^0] (see e.g. the EXPLAIN SERIALIZE patch thread [0], where the original author did not have the time capacity to maintain the patchset over months: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/ca0adb0e-fa4e-c37e-1cd7-91170b18c...@gmx.de [^1] Are there metrics on how many of the committed patches this CF were new, only registered this CF, and if they're more or less distributed to the feature freeze when compared to longer-running patchess? I can probably build these statistics by extracting the
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
Andrew Dunstan writes: > I quite like the triage idea. But I think there's also a case for being > more a bit more flexible with those patches we don't throw out. A case > close to my heart: I'd have been very sad if the NESTED piece of > JSON_TABLE hadn't made the cut, which it did with a few hours to spare, > and I would not have been alone, far from it. I'd have been happy to > give Amit a few more days or a week if he needed it, for a significant > headline feature. > I know there will be those who say it's the thin end of the wedge and > rulez is rulez, but this is my view. You've certainly been around the project long enough to remember the times in the past when we let the schedule slip for "one more big patch". It just about never worked out well, so I'm definitely in favor of a hard deadline. The trick is to control the tendency to push in patches that are only almost-ready in order to nominally meet the deadline. (I don't pretend to be immune from that temptation myself, but I think I resisted it better than some this year.) regards, tom lane
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On 2024-04-08 Mo 12:07, Alvaro Herrera wrote: On 2024-Apr-08, Robert Haas wrote: And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush of last-minute commits is bad for the project. Another idea is to run a patch triage around mid March 15th, with the intention of punting patches to the next cycle early enough. But rather than considering each patch in its own merits, consider the responsible _committers_ and the load that they are reasonably expected to handle: determine which patches each committer deems his or her responsibility for the rest of that March commitfest, and punt all the rest. That way we have a reasonably vetted amount of effort that each committer is allowed to spend for the remainder of that commitfest. Excesses should be obvious enough and discouraged. I quite like the triage idea. But I think there's also a case for being more a bit more flexible with those patches we don't throw out. A case close to my heart: I'd have been very sad if the NESTED piece of JSON_TABLE hadn't made the cut, which it did with a few hours to spare, and I would not have been alone, far from it. I'd have been happy to give Amit a few more days or a week if he needed it, for a significant headline feature. I know there will be those who say it's the thin end of the wedge and rulez is rulez, but this is my view. cheers andrew -- Andrew Dunstan EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On 4/8/24 21:32, Jelte Fennema-Nio wrote: > On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 20:15, Tomas Vondra > wrote: >> I 100% understand how frustrating the lack of progress can be, and I >> agree we need to do better. I tried to move a number of stuck patches >> this CF, and I hope (and plan) to do more of this in the future. >> >> But I don't quite see how would this rule modification change the >> situation for non-committers. > > The problem that I feel I'm seeing is that committers mostly seem to > materially review large patchsets in the last two commit fests. This > might be not based in reality, but it is definitely how it feels to > me. If someone has stats on this, feel free to share. > > I'll sketch a situation: There's a big patch that some non-committer > submitted that has been sitting on the mailinglist for 6 months or > more, only being reviewed by other non-committers, which the submitter > quickly addresses. Then in the final commit fest it is finally > reviewed by a committer, and they say it requires significant changes. > Right now, the submitter can decide to quickly address those changes, > and hope to keep the attention of this committer, to hopefully get it > merged before the deadline after probably a few more back and forths. > But this new rule would mean that those significant changes would be a > reason not to put it in the upcoming release. Which I expect would > first of all really feel like a slap in the face to the submitter, > because it's not their fault that those changes were only requested in > the last commit fest. This would then likely result in the submitter > not following up quickly (why make time right at this moment, if > you're suddenly going to have another full year), which would then > cause the committer to lose context of the patch and thus interest in > the patch. And then finally getting into the exact same situation next > year in the final commit fest, when some other committer didn't agree > with the redesign of the first one and request a new one pushing it > another year. > FWIW I have no doubt this problem is very real. It has never been easy to get stuff reviewed/committed, and I doubt it improved in last couple years, considering how the traffic on pgsql-hackers exploded :-( > So yeah, I definitely agree with Matthias. I definitely feel like his > rule would seriously impact contributions made by non-committers. > > Maybe a better solution to this problem would be to spread impactful > reviews by committers more evenly throughout the year. Then there > wouldn't be such a rush to address them in the last commit fest. Right. I think that's mostly what I was aiming for, although I haven't made it very clear/explicit. But yeah, if the consequence of the "rule" was that some of the patches are neglected entirely, that'd be pretty terrible - both for the project and for the contributors. regards -- Tomas Vondra EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 3:32 PM Jelte Fennema-Nio wrote: > Maybe a better solution to this problem would be to spread impactful > reviews by committers more evenly throughout the year. Then there > wouldn't be such a rush to address them in the last commit fest. Spreading activity of all sorts more evenly through the year should definitely be the goal, I think. It's just not exactly clear how we can do that. -- Robert Haas EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 20:15, Tomas Vondra wrote: > I 100% understand how frustrating the lack of progress can be, and I > agree we need to do better. I tried to move a number of stuck patches > this CF, and I hope (and plan) to do more of this in the future. > > But I don't quite see how would this rule modification change the > situation for non-committers. The problem that I feel I'm seeing is that committers mostly seem to materially review large patchsets in the last two commit fests. This might be not based in reality, but it is definitely how it feels to me. If someone has stats on this, feel free to share. I'll sketch a situation: There's a big patch that some non-committer submitted that has been sitting on the mailinglist for 6 months or more, only being reviewed by other non-committers, which the submitter quickly addresses. Then in the final commit fest it is finally reviewed by a committer, and they say it requires significant changes. Right now, the submitter can decide to quickly address those changes, and hope to keep the attention of this committer, to hopefully get it merged before the deadline after probably a few more back and forths. But this new rule would mean that those significant changes would be a reason not to put it in the upcoming release. Which I expect would first of all really feel like a slap in the face to the submitter, because it's not their fault that those changes were only requested in the last commit fest. This would then likely result in the submitter not following up quickly (why make time right at this moment, if you're suddenly going to have another full year), which would then cause the committer to lose context of the patch and thus interest in the patch. And then finally getting into the exact same situation next year in the final commit fest, when some other committer didn't agree with the redesign of the first one and request a new one pushing it another year. So yeah, I definitely agree with Matthias. I definitely feel like his rule would seriously impact contributions made by non-committers. Maybe a better solution to this problem would be to spread impactful reviews by committers more evenly throughout the year. Then there wouldn't be such a rush to address them in the last commit fest.
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
Hi, On 4/8/24 14:15, Tomas Vondra wrote: I think we need to fix & improve that - not to rework/push it at the very end. This is going to be very extreme... Either a patch is ready for merge or it isn't - when 2 or more Committers agree on it then it can be merged - the policy have to be discussed of course. However, development happens all through out the year, so having to wait for potential feedback during CommitFests windows can stop development during the other months - I'm talking about non-Committers here... Having patches on -hackers@ is best, but maybe there is a hybrid model where they exists in pull requests, tested through CfBot, and merged when ready - no matter what month it is. Pull requests could still have labels that ties them to a "CommitFest" to "high-light" them, but it would make it easier to have a much clearer cut-off date for feature freeze. And, pull request labels are easily changed. March is seeing a lot of last-minute changes... Just something to think about. Best regards, Jesper
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On 4/8/24 17:48, Matthias van de Meent wrote: > On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 17:21, Tomas Vondra > wrote: >> >> ... >> >> For me the main problem with the pre-freeze crush is that it leaves >> pretty much no practical chance to do meaningful review/testing, and >> some of the patches likely went through significant changes (at least >> judging by the number of messages and patch versions in the associated >> threads). That has to have a cost later ... >> >> That being said, I'm not sure the "progressive deadline" proposed by >> Heikki would improve that materially, and it seems like a lot of effort >> to maintain etc. And even if someone updates the CF app with all the >> details, does it even give others sufficient opportunity to review the >> new patch versions? I don't think so. (It anything, it does not seem >> fair to expect others to do last-minute reviews under pressure.) >> >> Maybe it'd be better to start by expanding the existing rule about not >> committing patches introduced for the first time in the last CF. > > I don't think adding more hurdles about what to include into the next > release is a good solution. Why the March CF, and not earlier? Or > later? How about unregistered patches? Changes to the docs? Bug fixes? > The March CF already has a submission deadline of "before march", so > that already puts a soft limit on the patches considered for the april > deadline. > >> What if >> we said that patches in the last CF must not go through significant >> changes, and if they do it'd mean the patch is moved to the next CF? > > I also think there is already a big issue with a lack of interest in > getting existing patches from non-committers committed, reducing the > set of patches that could be considered is just cheating the numbers > and discouraging people from contributing. For one, I know I have > motivation issues keeping up with reviewing other people's patches > when none (well, few, as of this CF) of my patches get reviewed > materially and committed. I don't see how shrinking the window of > opportunity for significant review from 9 to 7 months is going to help > there. > I 100% understand how frustrating the lack of progress can be, and I agree we need to do better. I tried to move a number of stuck patches this CF, and I hope (and plan) to do more of this in the future. But I don't quite see how would this rule modification change the situation for non-committers. AFAIK we already have the rule that (complex) patches should not appear in the last CF for the first time, and I'd argue that a substantial rework of a complex patch is not that far from a completely new patch. Sure, the reworks may be based on a thorough review, so there's a lot of nuance. But still, is it possible to properly review if it gets reworked at the very end of the CF? > So, I think that'd be counter-productive, as this would get the > perverse incentive to band-aid over (architectural) issues to limit > churn inside the patch, rather than fix those issues in a way that's > appropriate for the project as a whole. > Surely those architectural shortcomings should be identified in a review - which however requires time to do properly, and thus is an argument for ensuring there's enough time for such review (which is in direct conflict with the last-minute crush, IMO). Once again, I 100% agree we need to do better in handling patches from non-committers, absolutely no argument there. But does it require this last-minute crush? I don't think so, it can't be at the expense of proper review and getting it right. A complex patch needs to be submitted early in the cycle, not in the last CF. If it's submitted early, but does not receive enough interest/reviews, I think we need to fix & improve that - not to rework/push it at the very end. regards -- Tomas Vondra EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Tue, Apr 9, 2024 at 12:30 AM Andres Freund wrote: > > Hi, > > On 2024-04-08 09:26:09 -0400, Robert Haas wrote: > > On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 6:50 PM Michael Paquier wrote: > > And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of > > last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more > > feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you > > did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush > > of last-minute commits is bad for the project. > > Some will just polish commits until the last minute, until the > the dot's on the i's really shine, others will continue picking up more CF > entries until the freeze is reached, others will push half baked stuff. I agree with this part. Aside from considering how to institute some rules for mitigating the last-minute rush, it might also be a good idea to consider how to improve testing the new commits during beta. FWIW in each year, after feature freeze I personally pick some new features that I didn't get involved with during the development and do intensive reviews in April. It might be good if more people did things like that. That might help finding half baked features earlier and improve the quality in general. So for example, we list features that could require more reviews (e.g. because of its volume, complexity, and a span of influence etc.) and we do intensive reviews for these items. Each item should be reviewed by other than the author and the committer. We may want to set aside a specific period for intensive testing. Regards, -- Masahiko Sawada Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On 2024-Apr-08, Robert Haas wrote: > And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of > last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more > feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you > did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush > of last-minute commits is bad for the project. Another idea is to run a patch triage around mid March 15th, with the intention of punting patches to the next cycle early enough. But rather than considering each patch in its own merits, consider the responsible _committers_ and the load that they are reasonably expected to handle: determine which patches each committer deems his or her responsibility for the rest of that March commitfest, and punt all the rest. That way we have a reasonably vetted amount of effort that each committer is allowed to spend for the remainder of that commitfest. Excesses should be obvious enough and discouraged. -- Álvaro Herrera PostgreSQL Developer — https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 11:48 AM Matthias van de Meent wrote: > I also think there is already a big issue with a lack of interest in > getting existing patches from non-committers committed, reducing the > set of patches that could be considered is just cheating the numbers > and discouraging people from contributing. For one, I know I have > motivation issues keeping up with reviewing other people's patches > when none (well, few, as of this CF) of my patches get reviewed > materially and committed. I don't see how shrinking the window of > opportunity for significant review from 9 to 7 months is going to help > there. > > So, I think that'd be counter-productive, as this would get the > perverse incentive to band-aid over (architectural) issues to limit > churn inside the patch, rather than fix those issues in a way that's > appropriate for the project as a whole. I don't think you're wrong about any of this, but I don't think Tom and I are wrong to be upset about the volume of last-minute commits, either. There's a lot of this stuff that could have been committed a month ago, or two months ago, or six months ago, and it just wasn't. A certain amount of that is, as Heikki says, understandable and expected. People procrastinate. But, if too many people procrastinate too much, then it becomes a problem, and if you don't do anything about that problem then, well, you still have one. I don't want more barriers to getting stuff committed here either, but I also don't want somebody whose 100-line patch is basically unchanged since last July to commit it 19 hours before the feature freeze deadline[1]. That's just making everyone's life more difficult. If that patch happens to have been submitted by a non-committer, that non-committer waited an extra 9 months for the commit, not knowing whether it would actually happen, which like you say is demotivating. And if it was the committer's own patch then it was probably going in sooner or later, barring objections, so basically, they just deprived the project of 9 months of in-tree testing that the patch could have had basically for free. There's simply no world in which this kind of behavior is actually helpful to committers, non-committers, reviews, or the project in general. -- Robert Haas EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com [1] This is a fictional example, I made up these numbers without checking anything, but I think it's probably not far off some of what actually happened.
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On 4/8/24 8:29 AM, Andres Freund wrote: Hi, On 2024-04-08 09:26:09 -0400, Robert Haas wrote: On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 6:50 PM Michael Paquier wrote: And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush of last-minute commits is bad for the project. I don't think it's very useful to paint a very broad brush here, unfortunately. Some will just polish commits until the last minute, until the the dot's on the i's really shine, others will continue picking up more CF entries until the freeze is reached, others will push half baked stuff. Of course there will be an increased commit rate, but it does looks like there was some stuff that looked somewhat rickety. I agree with Andres here (though decline to comment on the rickety-ness of the patches). I think overcoming human nature to be more proactive at a deadline is at least a NP-hard problem. This won't change if we adjust deadlines. I think it's better to ensure we're enforcing best practices for commits, and maybe that's a separate review to have. As mentioned in different contexts, we do have several safeguards for a release: * We have a (fairly long) beta period; this allows us to remove patches prior to GA and get in further testing. * We have a RMT that (as Tom mentioned) can use its powers early and often to remove patches that are not up to our quality levels. * We can evaluate the quality of the commits coming in and coach folks on what to do better. I understand that a revert is costly, particularly the longer a commit stays in, and I do 100% agree we should maintain the high commit bar we have and not rush things in just so "they're in for feature freeze and we'll clean them up for beta." That's where best practices come in. I tend to judge the release by the outcome: once we go GA, how buggy is the release? Did something during the release cycle (e.g. a sloppy commit during feature freeze, lack of testing) lead to a bug that warranted an out-of-cycle release? And yes, how we commit things at feature freeze / through the beta impact that - we should ensure we're still committing things that we would have committed at a least hectic time, but understand that the deadline is still a strong motivator co complete the work. Thanks, Jonathan OpenPGP_signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 19:48, Matthias van de Meent < boekewurm+postg...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 17:21, Tomas Vondra > wrote: > > > > > > > > On 4/8/24 16:59, Tom Lane wrote: > > > Heikki Linnakangas writes: > > >> On 08/04/2024 16:43, Tom Lane wrote: > > >>> I was just about to pen an angry screed along the same lines. > > >>> The commit flux over the past couple days, and even the last > > >>> twelve hours, was flat-out ridiculous. These patches weren't > > >>> ready a week ago, and I doubt they were ready now. > > > > > >> Can you elaborate, which patches you think were not ready? Let's make > > >> sure to capture any concrete concerns in the Open Items list. > > > > > > [ shrug... ] There were fifty-some commits on the last day, > > > some of them quite large, and you want me to finger particular ones? > > > I can't even have read them all yet. > > > > > >> Yeah, I should have done that sooner, but realistically, there's > nothing > > >> like a looming deadline as a motivator. One idea to avoid the mad rush > > >> in the future would be to make the feature freeze deadline more > > >> progressive. For example: > > >> April 1: If you are still working on a feature that you still want to > > >> commit, you must explicitly flag it in the commitfest as "I plan to > > >> commit this very soon". > > >> April 4: You must give a short status update about anything that you > > >> haven't committed yet, with an explanation of how you plan to proceed > > >> with it. > > >> April 5-8: Mandatory daily status updates, explicit approval by the > > >> commitfest manager needed each day to continue working on it. > > >> April 8: Hard feature freeze deadline > > > > > >> This would also give everyone more visibility, so that we're not all > > >> surprised by the last minute flood of commits. > > > > > > Perhaps something like that could help, but it seems like a lot > > > of mechanism. I think the real problem is just that committers > > > need to re-orient their thinking a little. We must get *less* > > > willing to commit marginal patches, not more so, as the deadline > > > approaches. > > > > > > > For me the main problem with the pre-freeze crush is that it leaves > > pretty much no practical chance to do meaningful review/testing, and > > some of the patches likely went through significant changes (at least > > judging by the number of messages and patch versions in the associated > > threads). That has to have a cost later ... > > > > That being said, I'm not sure the "progressive deadline" proposed by > > Heikki would improve that materially, and it seems like a lot of effort > > to maintain etc. And even if someone updates the CF app with all the > > details, does it even give others sufficient opportunity to review the > > new patch versions? I don't think so. (It anything, it does not seem > > fair to expect others to do last-minute reviews under pressure.) > > > > Maybe it'd be better to start by expanding the existing rule about not > > committing patches introduced for the first time in the last CF. > > I don't think adding more hurdles about what to include into the next > release is a good solution. Why the March CF, and not earlier? Or > later? How about unregistered patches? Changes to the docs? Bug fixes? > The March CF already has a submission deadline of "before march", so > that already puts a soft limit on the patches considered for the april > deadline. > > > What if > > we said that patches in the last CF must not go through significant > > changes, and if they do it'd mean the patch is moved to the next CF? > > I also think there is already a big issue with a lack of interest in > getting existing patches from non-committers committed, reducing the > set of patches that could be considered is just cheating the numbers > and discouraging people from contributing. For one, I know I have > motivation issues keeping up with reviewing other people's patches > when none (well, few, as of this CF) of my patches get reviewed > materially and committed. I don't see how shrinking the window of > opportunity for significant review from 9 to 7 months is going to help > there. > > So, I think that'd be counter-productive, as this would get the > perverse incentive to band-aid over (architectural) issues to limit > churn inside the patch, rather than fix those issues in a way that's > appropriate for the project as a whole. > I second your opinion, Mattias! I also feel that the management of the review of other contibutor's patches participation is much more important for a community as a whole. And this could make process of patches proposals and improvement running, while motivating participation (in all three roles of contributors, reviewers and committers), not vice versa. Regards, Pavel.
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 17:21, Tomas Vondra wrote: > > > > On 4/8/24 16:59, Tom Lane wrote: > > Heikki Linnakangas writes: > >> On 08/04/2024 16:43, Tom Lane wrote: > >>> I was just about to pen an angry screed along the same lines. > >>> The commit flux over the past couple days, and even the last > >>> twelve hours, was flat-out ridiculous. These patches weren't > >>> ready a week ago, and I doubt they were ready now. > > > >> Can you elaborate, which patches you think were not ready? Let's make > >> sure to capture any concrete concerns in the Open Items list. > > > > [ shrug... ] There were fifty-some commits on the last day, > > some of them quite large, and you want me to finger particular ones? > > I can't even have read them all yet. > > > >> Yeah, I should have done that sooner, but realistically, there's nothing > >> like a looming deadline as a motivator. One idea to avoid the mad rush > >> in the future would be to make the feature freeze deadline more > >> progressive. For example: > >> April 1: If you are still working on a feature that you still want to > >> commit, you must explicitly flag it in the commitfest as "I plan to > >> commit this very soon". > >> April 4: You must give a short status update about anything that you > >> haven't committed yet, with an explanation of how you plan to proceed > >> with it. > >> April 5-8: Mandatory daily status updates, explicit approval by the > >> commitfest manager needed each day to continue working on it. > >> April 8: Hard feature freeze deadline > > > >> This would also give everyone more visibility, so that we're not all > >> surprised by the last minute flood of commits. > > > > Perhaps something like that could help, but it seems like a lot > > of mechanism. I think the real problem is just that committers > > need to re-orient their thinking a little. We must get *less* > > willing to commit marginal patches, not more so, as the deadline > > approaches. > > > > For me the main problem with the pre-freeze crush is that it leaves > pretty much no practical chance to do meaningful review/testing, and > some of the patches likely went through significant changes (at least > judging by the number of messages and patch versions in the associated > threads). That has to have a cost later ... > > That being said, I'm not sure the "progressive deadline" proposed by > Heikki would improve that materially, and it seems like a lot of effort > to maintain etc. And even if someone updates the CF app with all the > details, does it even give others sufficient opportunity to review the > new patch versions? I don't think so. (It anything, it does not seem > fair to expect others to do last-minute reviews under pressure.) > > Maybe it'd be better to start by expanding the existing rule about not > committing patches introduced for the first time in the last CF. I don't think adding more hurdles about what to include into the next release is a good solution. Why the March CF, and not earlier? Or later? How about unregistered patches? Changes to the docs? Bug fixes? The March CF already has a submission deadline of "before march", so that already puts a soft limit on the patches considered for the april deadline. > What if > we said that patches in the last CF must not go through significant > changes, and if they do it'd mean the patch is moved to the next CF? I also think there is already a big issue with a lack of interest in getting existing patches from non-committers committed, reducing the set of patches that could be considered is just cheating the numbers and discouraging people from contributing. For one, I know I have motivation issues keeping up with reviewing other people's patches when none (well, few, as of this CF) of my patches get reviewed materially and committed. I don't see how shrinking the window of opportunity for significant review from 9 to 7 months is going to help there. So, I think that'd be counter-productive, as this would get the perverse incentive to band-aid over (architectural) issues to limit churn inside the patch, rather than fix those issues in a way that's appropriate for the project as a whole. -Matthias
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
Hi, On 2024-04-08 09:26:09 -0400, Robert Haas wrote: > On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 6:50 PM Michael Paquier wrote: > And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of > last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more > feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you > did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush > of last-minute commits is bad for the project. I don't think it's very useful to paint a very broad brush here, unfortunately. Some will just polish commits until the last minute, until the the dot's on the i's really shine, others will continue picking up more CF entries until the freeze is reached, others will push half baked stuff. Of course there will be an increased commit rate, but it does looks like there was some stuff that looked somewhat rickety. Greetings, Andres
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On 4/8/24 11:05, Tom Lane wrote: Pavel Borisov writes: IMO the fact that people struggle to work on patches, and make them better, etc. is an immense blessing for the Postgres community. Is the peak of commits really a big problem provided we have 6 months before actual release? I doubt March patches tend to be worse than the November ones. Yes, it's a problem, and yes the average quality of last-minute patches is visibly worse than that of patches committed in a less hasty fashion. We have been through this every year for the last couple decades, seems like, and we keep re-learning that lesson the hard way. I'm just distressed at our utter failure to learn from experience. I don't dispute that we could do better, and this is just a simplistic look based on "number of commits per day", but the attached does put it in perspective to some extent. -- Joe Conway PostgreSQL Contributors Team RDS Open Source Databases Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On 4/8/24 16:59, Tom Lane wrote: > Heikki Linnakangas writes: >> On 08/04/2024 16:43, Tom Lane wrote: >>> I was just about to pen an angry screed along the same lines. >>> The commit flux over the past couple days, and even the last >>> twelve hours, was flat-out ridiculous. These patches weren't >>> ready a week ago, and I doubt they were ready now. > >> Can you elaborate, which patches you think were not ready? Let's make >> sure to capture any concrete concerns in the Open Items list. > > [ shrug... ] There were fifty-some commits on the last day, > some of them quite large, and you want me to finger particular ones? > I can't even have read them all yet. > >> Yeah, I should have done that sooner, but realistically, there's nothing >> like a looming deadline as a motivator. One idea to avoid the mad rush >> in the future would be to make the feature freeze deadline more >> progressive. For example: >> April 1: If you are still working on a feature that you still want to >> commit, you must explicitly flag it in the commitfest as "I plan to >> commit this very soon". >> April 4: You must give a short status update about anything that you >> haven't committed yet, with an explanation of how you plan to proceed >> with it. >> April 5-8: Mandatory daily status updates, explicit approval by the >> commitfest manager needed each day to continue working on it. >> April 8: Hard feature freeze deadline > >> This would also give everyone more visibility, so that we're not all >> surprised by the last minute flood of commits. > > Perhaps something like that could help, but it seems like a lot > of mechanism. I think the real problem is just that committers > need to re-orient their thinking a little. We must get *less* > willing to commit marginal patches, not more so, as the deadline > approaches. > For me the main problem with the pre-freeze crush is that it leaves pretty much no practical chance to do meaningful review/testing, and some of the patches likely went through significant changes (at least judging by the number of messages and patch versions in the associated threads). That has to have a cost later ... That being said, I'm not sure the "progressive deadline" proposed by Heikki would improve that materially, and it seems like a lot of effort to maintain etc. And even if someone updates the CF app with all the details, does it even give others sufficient opportunity to review the new patch versions? I don't think so. (It anything, it does not seem fair to expect others to do last-minute reviews under pressure.) Maybe it'd be better to start by expanding the existing rule about not committing patches introduced for the first time in the last CF. What if we said that patches in the last CF must not go through significant changes, and if they do it'd mean the patch is moved to the next CF? Perhaps with exceptions to be granted by the RMT when appropriate? regards -- Tomas Vondra EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
Pavel Borisov writes: > IMO the fact that people struggle to work on patches, and make them better, > etc. is an immense blessing for the Postgres community. Is the peak of > commits really a big problem provided we have 6 months before actual > release? I doubt March patches tend to be worse than the November ones. Yes, it's a problem, and yes the average quality of last-minute patches is visibly worse than that of patches committed in a less hasty fashion. We have been through this every year for the last couple decades, seems like, and we keep re-learning that lesson the hard way. I'm just distressed at our utter failure to learn from experience. regards, tom lane
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
Heikki Linnakangas writes: > On 08/04/2024 16:43, Tom Lane wrote: >> I was just about to pen an angry screed along the same lines. >> The commit flux over the past couple days, and even the last >> twelve hours, was flat-out ridiculous. These patches weren't >> ready a week ago, and I doubt they were ready now. > Can you elaborate, which patches you think were not ready? Let's make > sure to capture any concrete concerns in the Open Items list. [ shrug... ] There were fifty-some commits on the last day, some of them quite large, and you want me to finger particular ones? I can't even have read them all yet. > Yeah, I should have done that sooner, but realistically, there's nothing > like a looming deadline as a motivator. One idea to avoid the mad rush > in the future would be to make the feature freeze deadline more > progressive. For example: > April 1: If you are still working on a feature that you still want to > commit, you must explicitly flag it in the commitfest as "I plan to > commit this very soon". > April 4: You must give a short status update about anything that you > haven't committed yet, with an explanation of how you plan to proceed > with it. > April 5-8: Mandatory daily status updates, explicit approval by the > commitfest manager needed each day to continue working on it. > April 8: Hard feature freeze deadline > This would also give everyone more visibility, so that we're not all > surprised by the last minute flood of commits. Perhaps something like that could help, but it seems like a lot of mechanism. I think the real problem is just that committers need to re-orient their thinking a little. We must get *less* willing to commit marginal patches, not more so, as the deadline approaches. regards, tom lane
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 18:42, Heikki Linnakangas wrote: > On 08/04/2024 16:43, Tom Lane wrote: > > Robert Haas writes: > >> And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of > >> last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more > >> feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you > >> did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush > >> of last-minute commits is bad for the project. > > > > I was just about to pen an angry screed along the same lines. > > The commit flux over the past couple days, and even the last > > twelve hours, was flat-out ridiculous. These patches weren't > > ready a week ago, and I doubt they were ready now. > > > > The RMT should feel free to exercise their right to require > > revert "early and often", or we are going to be shipping a > > very buggy release. > > > Can you elaborate, which patches you think were not ready? Let's make > sure to capture any concrete concerns in the Open Items list. > > I agree the last-minute crunch felt more intense than in previous years. > I'm guilty myself; I crunched the "direct SSL" patches in. My rationale > for that one: It's been in a pretty settled state for a long time. There > hasn't been any particular concerns about the design or the > implementation. I haven't commit tit sooner because I was not > comfortable with the lack of tests, especially the libpq parts. So I > made a last minute dash to write the tests so that I'm comfortable with > it, and I restructured the commits so that the tests and refactorings > come first. The resulting code changes look the same they have for a > long time, and I didn't uncover any significant new issues while doing > that. I would not have felt comfortable committing it otherwise. > > Yeah, I should have done that sooner, but realistically, there's nothing > like a looming deadline as a motivator. One idea to avoid the mad rush > in the future would be to make the feature freeze deadline more > progressive. For example: > > April 1: If you are still working on a feature that you still want to > commit, you must explicitly flag it in the commitfest as "I plan to > commit this very soon". > > April 4: You must give a short status update about anything that you > haven't committed yet, with an explanation of how you plan to proceed > with it. > > April 5-8: Mandatory daily status updates, explicit approval by the > commitfest manager needed each day to continue working on it. > > April 8: Hard feature freeze deadline > > This would also give everyone more visibility, so that we're not all > surprised by the last minute flood of commits. > IMO the fact that people struggle to work on patches, and make them better, etc. is an immense blessing for the Postgres community. Is the peak of commits really a big problem provided we have 6 months before actual release? I doubt March patches tend to be worse than the November ones. People are different, so are the ways they feel motivation and inspiration. This could be easily broken with bureaucratic decisions some of them, like proposed counting of lines of code vs period of time look even little bit repressive. Let's remain an open community, support inspiration in each other, and don't build an over-regulated corporation. I feel that Postgres will win if people feel less limited by formal rules. Personally, I believe RMT has enough experience and authority to stabilize and interact with authors if questions arise. Regards, Pavel Borisov
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 10:41 AM Robert Treat wrote: > > On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 10:27 AM Melanie Plageman > wrote: > > On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 9:26 AM Robert Haas wrote: > > > On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 6:50 PM Michael Paquier > > > wrote: > > > > And, as of the moment of typing this email, I get: > > > > =# select '2024-04-08 00:00-12:00' - now() as time_remaining; > > > > time_remaining > > > > - > > > > 13:10:35.688134 > > > > (1 row) > > > > > > > > So there is just a bit more than half a day remaining before the > > > > feature freeze is in effect. > > > > > > OK, so feature freeze is now in effect, then. > > > > > > In the future, let's use GMT for these deadlines. There have got to be > > > a lot more people who can easily understand when a certain GMT > > > timestamp falls in their local timezone than there are people who can > > > easily understand when a certain AOE timestamp falls in their local > > > timezone. > > > > > > And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of > > > last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more > > > feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you > > > did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush > > > of last-minute commits is bad for the project. > > > > What if we pick the actual feature freeze time randomly? That is, > > starting on March 15th (or whenever but more than a week before), each > > night someone from RMT generates a random number between $current_day > > and April 8th. If the number matches $current_day, that day at > > midnight is the feature freeze. > > > > Unfortunately many humans are hardwired towards procrastination and > last minute heroics (it's one reason why deadline driven development > works even though in the long run it tends to be bad practice), and > historically was one of the driving factors in why we started doing > commitfests in the first place (you should have seen the mad dash of > commits before we had that process), so ISTM that it's not completely > avoidable... > > That said, are you suggesting that the feature freeze deadline be > random, and also held in secret by the RMT, only to be announced after > the freeze time has passed? This feels weird, but might apply enough > deadline related pressure while avoiding last minute shenanigans. Basically, yes. The RMT would find out each day whether or not that day is the feature freeze but not tell anyone. Then they would push some kind of feature freeze tag (do we already do a feature freeze tag? I didn't think so) at 11:59 PM (in some timezone) that evening and all commits that are feature commits after that are reverted. I basically thought it would be a way for people to know that they need to have their work done before April but keep them from waiting until the actual last minute. The rationale for doing it this way is it requires way less human involvement than some of the other methods proposed. Figuring out how many commits each committer is allowed to do based on past number of LOC,etc like Robert's suggestion sounds like a lot of work. I was trying to think of a simple way to beat the natural propensity people have toward procrastination. But, an approach like Heikki suggested [1] with check-ins and staggered deadlines is certainly much more principled. It just sounds like it will require a lot of enforcement and oversight. And it might be hard to ensure it doesn't end up being enforced only for some people and not others. However, I suppose everyone is saying a mindset shift is needed. And you can't usually shift a mindset with a technical solution like I proposed (despite what Libertarians might tell you about carbon offsets). - Melanie [1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/a5485b74-059a-4ea0-b445-7c393d6fe0de%40iki.fi
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On 08/04/2024 16:43, Tom Lane wrote: Robert Haas writes: And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush of last-minute commits is bad for the project. I was just about to pen an angry screed along the same lines. The commit flux over the past couple days, and even the last twelve hours, was flat-out ridiculous. These patches weren't ready a week ago, and I doubt they were ready now. The RMT should feel free to exercise their right to require revert "early and often", or we are going to be shipping a very buggy release. Can you elaborate, which patches you think were not ready? Let's make sure to capture any concrete concerns in the Open Items list. I agree the last-minute crunch felt more intense than in previous years. I'm guilty myself; I crunched the "direct SSL" patches in. My rationale for that one: It's been in a pretty settled state for a long time. There hasn't been any particular concerns about the design or the implementation. I haven't commit tit sooner because I was not comfortable with the lack of tests, especially the libpq parts. So I made a last minute dash to write the tests so that I'm comfortable with it, and I restructured the commits so that the tests and refactorings come first. The resulting code changes look the same they have for a long time, and I didn't uncover any significant new issues while doing that. I would not have felt comfortable committing it otherwise. Yeah, I should have done that sooner, but realistically, there's nothing like a looming deadline as a motivator. One idea to avoid the mad rush in the future would be to make the feature freeze deadline more progressive. For example: April 1: If you are still working on a feature that you still want to commit, you must explicitly flag it in the commitfest as "I plan to commit this very soon". April 4: You must give a short status update about anything that you haven't committed yet, with an explanation of how you plan to proceed with it. April 5-8: Mandatory daily status updates, explicit approval by the commitfest manager needed each day to continue working on it. April 8: Hard feature freeze deadline This would also give everyone more visibility, so that we're not all surprised by the last minute flood of commits. -- Heikki Linnakangas Neon (https://neon.tech)
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
> On 8 Apr 2024, at 17:26, Melanie Plageman wrote: > > What if we pick the actual feature freeze time randomly? That is, > starting on March 15th (or whenever but more than a week before), each > night someone from RMT generates a random number between $current_day > and April 8th. If the number matches $current_day, that day at > midnight is the feature freeze. But this implies that actual date is not publicly known before feature freeze is in effect. Do I understand idea correctly? Best regards, Andrey Borodin.
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, 2024-04-08 at 09:26 -0400, Robert Haas wrote: > And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of > last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more > feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you > did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush > of last-minute commits is bad for the project. I found that there are a lot of people who can only get going with a pressing deadline. But that's just an observation, not an excuse. I don't know if additional rules will achieve anything here. This can only improve with buy-in from the committers, and that cannot be forced. Yours, Laurenz Albe
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 10:27 AM Melanie Plageman wrote: > On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 9:26 AM Robert Haas wrote: > > On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 6:50 PM Michael Paquier wrote: > > > And, as of the moment of typing this email, I get: > > > =# select '2024-04-08 00:00-12:00' - now() as time_remaining; > > > time_remaining > > > - > > > 13:10:35.688134 > > > (1 row) > > > > > > So there is just a bit more than half a day remaining before the > > > feature freeze is in effect. > > > > OK, so feature freeze is now in effect, then. > > > > In the future, let's use GMT for these deadlines. There have got to be > > a lot more people who can easily understand when a certain GMT > > timestamp falls in their local timezone than there are people who can > > easily understand when a certain AOE timestamp falls in their local > > timezone. > > > > And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of > > last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more > > feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you > > did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush > > of last-minute commits is bad for the project. > > What if we pick the actual feature freeze time randomly? That is, > starting on March 15th (or whenever but more than a week before), each > night someone from RMT generates a random number between $current_day > and April 8th. If the number matches $current_day, that day at > midnight is the feature freeze. > Unfortunately many humans are hardwired towards procrastination and last minute heroics (it's one reason why deadline driven development works even though in the long run it tends to be bad practice), and historically was one of the driving factors in why we started doing commitfests in the first place (you should have seen the mad dash of commits before we had that process), so ISTM that it's not completely avoidable... That said, are you suggesting that the feature freeze deadline be random, and also held in secret by the RMT, only to be announced after the freeze time has passed? This feels weird, but might apply enough deadline related pressure while avoiding last minute shenanigans. Robert Treat https://xzilla.net
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 9:26 AM Robert Haas wrote: > > On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 6:50 PM Michael Paquier wrote: > > And, as of the moment of typing this email, I get: > > =# select '2024-04-08 00:00-12:00' - now() as time_remaining; > > time_remaining > > - > > 13:10:35.688134 > > (1 row) > > > > So there is just a bit more than half a day remaining before the > > feature freeze is in effect. > > OK, so feature freeze is now in effect, then. > > In the future, let's use GMT for these deadlines. There have got to be > a lot more people who can easily understand when a certain GMT > timestamp falls in their local timezone than there are people who can > easily understand when a certain AOE timestamp falls in their local > timezone. > > And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of > last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more > feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you > did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush > of last-minute commits is bad for the project. What if we pick the actual feature freeze time randomly? That is, starting on March 15th (or whenever but more than a week before), each night someone from RMT generates a random number between $current_day and April 8th. If the number matches $current_day, that day at midnight is the feature freeze. - Melanie
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
Robert Haas writes: > And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of > last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more > feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you > did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush > of last-minute commits is bad for the project. I was just about to pen an angry screed along the same lines. The commit flux over the past couple days, and even the last twelve hours, was flat-out ridiculous. These patches weren't ready a week ago, and I doubt they were ready now. The RMT should feel free to exercise their right to require revert "early and often", or we are going to be shipping a very buggy release. regards, tom lane
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 6:50 PM Michael Paquier wrote: > And, as of the moment of typing this email, I get: > =# select '2024-04-08 00:00-12:00' - now() as time_remaining; > time_remaining > - > 13:10:35.688134 > (1 row) > > So there is just a bit more than half a day remaining before the > feature freeze is in effect. OK, so feature freeze is now in effect, then. In the future, let's use GMT for these deadlines. There have got to be a lot more people who can easily understand when a certain GMT timestamp falls in their local timezone than there are people who can easily understand when a certain AOE timestamp falls in their local timezone. And maybe we need to think of a way to further mitigate this crush of last minute commits. e.g. In the last week, you can't have more feature commits, or more lines of insertions in your commits, than you did in the prior 3 weeks combined. I don't know. I think this mad rush of last-minute commits is bad for the project. -- Robert Haas EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Thu, Apr 04, 2024 at 03:10:27PM +1300, David Rowley wrote: > Someone asked me about this, so thought it might be useful to post here. I've received the same question. > To express this as UTC, It's: > > postgres=# select '2024-04-08 00:00-12:00' at time zone 'UTC'; > timezone > - > 2024-04-08 12:00:00 > > Or, time remaining, relative to now: > > select '2024-04-08 00:00-12:00' - now(); And, as of the moment of typing this email, I get: =# select '2024-04-08 00:00-12:00' - now() as time_remaining; time_remaining - 13:10:35.688134 (1 row) So there is just a bit more than half a day remaining before the feature freeze is in effect. -- Michael signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, 18 Mar 2024 at 15:50, Michael Paquier wrote: > Additionally, the RMT has set the feature freeze to be **April 8, 2024 > at 0:00 AoE** (see [1]). This is the last time to commit features for > PostgreSQL 17. In other words, no new PostgreSQL 17 feature can be > committed after April 8, 2024 at 0:00 AoE. As mentioned last year in > [2], this uses the "standard" feature freeze date/time. Someone asked me about this, so thought it might be useful to post here. To express this as UTC, It's: postgres=# select '2024-04-08 00:00-12:00' at time zone 'UTC'; timezone - 2024-04-08 12:00:00 Or, time remaining, relative to now: select '2024-04-08 00:00-12:00' - now(); David > [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anywhere_on_Earth > [2]: > https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/9fbe60ec-fd1b-6ee0-240d-af7fc4442...@postgresql.org
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 12:39 PM Hayato Kuroda (Fujitsu) wrote: > > > If you think that this is OK, and as far as I can see this looks OK on > > the thread, then this open item should be moved under "resolved before > > 17beta1", mentioning the commit involved in the fix. Please see [1] > > for examples. > > OK, I understood that I could wait checking from you. Thanks. > I don't think there is a need to wait here. The issue being tracked was fixed, so I have updated the open items page accordingly. -- With Regards, Amit Kapila.
RE: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
Dear Michael, > If you think that this is OK, and as far as I can see this looks OK on > the thread, then this open item should be moved under "resolved before > 17beta1", mentioning the commit involved in the fix. Please see [1] > for examples. OK, I understood that I could wait checking from you. Thanks. Best Regards, Hayato Kuroda FUJITSU LIMITED https://www.fujitsu.com/
Re: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
On Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 03:49:24AM +, Hayato Kuroda (Fujitsu) wrote: > I think the entry can be closed: > > ``` > pg_upgrade with --link mode failing upgrade of publishers > Commit: 29d0a77fa660 > Owner: Amit Kapila > ``` > > The reported failure was only related with the test script, not the feature. > The issue has already been analyzed and the fix patch was pushed as > f17529b710. If you think that this is OK, and as far as I can see this looks OK on the thread, then this open item should be moved under "resolved before 17beta1", mentioning the commit involved in the fix. Please see [1] for examples. [1]: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_16_Open_Items#resolved_before_16beta1 -- Michael signature.asc Description: PGP signature
RE: PostgreSQL 17 Release Management Team & Feature Freeze
Dear Michael, > We are pleased to announce the Release Management Team (RMT) (cc'd) > for the PostgreSQL 17 release: > - Robert Haas > - Heikki Linnakangas > - Michael Paquier Thanks for managing the release of PostgreSQL to proceed the right direction! > You can track open items for the PostgreSQL 17 release here: > https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_17_Open_Items I think the entry can be closed: ``` pg_upgrade with --link mode failing upgrade of publishers Commit: 29d0a77fa660 Owner: Amit Kapila ``` The reported failure was only related with the test script, not the feature. The issue has already been analyzed and the fix patch was pushed as f17529b710. Best Regards, Hayato Kuroda FUJITSU LIMITED https://www.fujitsu.com/
