On May 6, 2007, at 8:18 AM, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
Oh, the answer to Bruce's question about when to create a feature item? You could well do it at the time when today you create a TODO item. However, we might even do better. For example, we might well add feature requests that are denied. That would help people to see if something has been proposed before.
The problem with our current TODO process is that whether an item makes it onto the list is essentially determined by did the idea catch a committer's attention, and did that committer happen to think it was a good idea. That sets the bar pretty high for getting stuff on the list (which you need for a simple list like TODO), but it also means it's very subjective. (Of course 98% of the time that committer is Bruce, but I don't think that matters here...)
The subjectivity is because we don't have an effective means to get information about how PostgreSQL is used in the field. Sometimes you can mine that information out of the archives, but that's a pretty tedious process (and therefor one that's unlikely to happen). But that's also not necessarily representative... many people will try and find an answer to something on their own and not post anything to the lists at all, even if the 'answer' they find isn't very optimal.
Instead, if all feature requests are tracked then users can vote on what's most important to them. That provides immediate feedback to the community on how important something is to the users. http:// lnk.nu/bugzilla.mozilla.org/edc.cgi is an example of that for Firefox.
-- Jim Nasby [EMAIL PROTECTED] EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell) ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
