Re: [PATCHES] running script on server shutdown (TODO)

2005-12-11 Thread Neil Conway
On Sat, 2005-12-10 at 21:16 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
 Not sure what else can be done to improve this process.

I think the barrier to adding new TODO entries or modifying existing
ones is too high. While it's great that Bruce maintains the list, the
inevitable result is that the list tends to reflect the discussions and
features that the TODO list maintainer thinks are interesting.

Why is the TODO list keep in the source code repository, anyway? One
alternative would be to move it to a wiki. That would allow other people
to contribute to maintaining the list, with less procedural overhead.
The GCC folks do this, for example: example: http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/

 And our developer TODO has:
[...]
 So I think we are covered there too.

I don't see that we're covered: sure, it's documented that people
ought to ask on -hackers first, but this exact situation has happened
several times in the past. Avoiding that would be a good thing,
documentation or no.

-Neil



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[PATCHES] nls_sort function has not beed added in contrib in version 8.1.0

2005-12-11 Thread Mahmoud Taghizadeh
Dear All  I had some  discussion to convince the maintainer of postgresql to add nls_sort  function to the contribution. he accepted to add this function in  release of 8.1 but unfortunately he did not.   This feature is  needed by some governmental organization that we convince them to use  postgresql instead of Ms SQL. they want to be sure that this function  is added in contribution of postgresql.RegardsWith Regards,--taghi
	
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[PATCHES] please update your website

2005-12-11 Thread Mahmoud Taghizadeh
the link for Farsi FAQ has beed removed from site. please update  
	
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Re: [PATCHES] is not distinct from

2005-12-11 Thread Neil Conway
On Fri, 2005-11-25 at 17:01 +0100, Pavel Stehule wrote:
 small patch, add form is not distinct from expression (sql2003)

Applied to HEAD -- thanks for the patch.

-Neil



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Re: [PATCHES] running script on server shutdown (TODO)

2005-12-11 Thread Peter Eisentraut
Bruce Momjian wrote:
 Well, the item was added at the request of Peter Eisentraut and
 Martijn van Oosterhout and took place on hackers.  The TODO addition
 was posted too:
   http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2005-12/msg00333.php

The discussion did not mention anything about running a script on normal 
shutdown.

-- 
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

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Re: [PATCHES] running script on server shutdown (TODO)

2005-12-11 Thread Tom Lane
Neil Conway [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 On Sat, 2005-12-10 at 21:16 -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
 Not sure what else can be done to improve this process.

 Why is the TODO list keep in the source code repository, anyway? One
 alternative would be to move it to a wiki.

That seems unlikely to improve the quality of the list :-(.  With the
present process, entries are made after some discussion on the mailing
list, and at least most of the time there's some consensus that an idea
is good.  With a wiki, anyone could stick an item on there with no peer
review.  The only way you get any review is if people watch the wiki
as carefully as they watch the mailing lists ... and I for one don't
need any additional time sinks.

The real problem that I see is that Bruce abstracts the discussions
down into one-line summaries that frequently omit critical information.
I would like to see all the TODO items include links to the archived
threads that led up to them.  In this example, had the patch author gone
back and looked at the thread, he'd have noticed that at no point was
there a discussion of running scripts during database shutdown.

regards, tom lane

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Re: [PATCHES] running script on server shutdown (TODO)

2005-12-11 Thread Neil Conway
On Mon, 2005-12-12 at 09:39 +0800, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
 Call me crazy - but isn't this what you usually use a bug tracker for?

Well, some people do. I don't really see the point, though. What
advantages would it have?

-Neil



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Re: [PATCHES] running script on server shutdown (TODO)

2005-12-11 Thread Bruce Momjian
Neil Conway wrote:
 I agree, but I think this is another symptom of having only one person
 maintain the list. It is a non-trivial amount of work to understand all
 the arguments in a complex -hackers thread and distill that into a few
 accurate sentences that summarize the consensus (if there even was
 one!). I'm not at all surprised when the TODO entry that results is
 incomplete or misleading if the person doing the summary wasn't one of
 the primary participants in the -hackers thread.

Why can't others modify the TODO list, or FAQ for that matter.  I get
patches for the later, but few for the former.

 
 Short of going to a wiki, I think we can at least make it easier for
 other committers to modify the TODO list. What format is doc/TODO in,
 anyway? (It doesn't seem to be normal plaintext.) Why is there also an
 HTML copy of the TODO list (doc/src/FAQ/TODO.html) kept in CVS? (I'd
 rather we not keep generated files in CVS, in general.)
 
 I think a concrete improvement would be to get rid of all that, and
 maintain a master copy of the TODO list in some sane format -- or
 failing that, DocBook :)

I replied to this in another email.

-- 
  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
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Re: [PATCHES] running script on server shutdown (TODO)

2005-12-11 Thread Bruce Momjian
Joshua D. Drake wrote:
  Why is the TODO list keep in the source code repository, anyway? One
  alternative would be to move it to a wiki. That would allow other people
  to contribute to maintaining the list, with less procedural overhead.
  The GCC folks do this, for example: example: http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/
 
 I agree with this. It would add visibility to what the direction of 
 PostgreSQL as well as put a friendly face on what the heck is 
 happening.
 
 I get a lot of calls that are basically, What's coming in 8.2 Unless I 
 follow the lists it is not an easy bit of information to get. A wiki that had
 a page that said, What's planned for 8.2! or would be great!
 
 It would also be useful to see who has signed on as the lead or to work on 
 a particular subproject in case other developers would like to either lead 
 or help a lead on the project.
 
 I would request a vote interface but I think we would get to many 
 mysqlisms ;)

You are dreaming on this one.  Of our changes in any major release,
probably 40% are from the TODO list, and 60% are just patches submitted.
How does aomething even get on the TODO list from a patch?

To do what you want requires someone with technical knowlege to spend
serious time analyzing the CVS commits and digesting it into a web page.
I can be done, but it isn't the same purpose as the TODO list.

-- 
  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

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Re: [PATCHES] running script on server shutdown (TODO)

2005-12-11 Thread Joshua D. Drake

It would also be useful to see who has signed on as the lead or to work on
a particular subproject in case other developers would like to either lead
or help a lead on the project.

I would request a vote interface but I think we would get to many
mysqlisms ;)


You are dreaming on this one.


Man then all those other FOSS projects like (KDE/Mozilla) that do it must 
be sleeping through the whole development cycle.



 Of our changes in any major release,
probably 40% are from the TODO list, and 60% are just patches submitted.
How does aomething even get on the TODO list from a patch?


A bug/request tracker?


To do what you want requires someone with technical knowlege to spend
serious time analyzing the CVS commits and digesting it into a web page.


Not if the infrastructure is put in place to deal with it in the first 
place.


If a patch is accepted, when it is accepted a simple message that says:

Accepted for 8.2 + Adds capability to program VCR

Pretty much does everything we need.


I can be done, but it isn't the same purpose as the TODO list.


Actually it is. It is called overall project management and it is 
something that has come up here many times.


I guess I just don't understand why so many other projects larger then us 
and much smaller then us can do it, but we can't.


Here are some examples of some projects that have actual stated goals that 
are OSS:


KDE
Gnome
Trac
Django
Firebird
Python

We do, provide some feedback to what is going on from the website but the 
barrier is pretty high in comparison to these other websites. Not to 
mention how hard it is to figure out what bugs have been patched or 
haven't.


Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake







--
Command Prompt, Inc., Your PostgreSQL solutions company. 503-667-4564
Custom programming, 24x7 support, managed services, and hosting
Open Source Authors: plPHP, pgManage, Co-Authors: plPerlNG
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Re: [PATCHES] running script on server shutdown (TODO)

2005-12-11 Thread Bruce Momjian
Joshua D. Drake wrote:
  It would also be useful to see who has signed on as the lead or to work on
  a particular subproject in case other developers would like to either lead
  or help a lead on the project.
 
  I would request a vote interface but I think we would get to many
  mysqlisms ;)
 
  You are dreaming on this one.
 
 Man then all those other FOSS projects like (KDE/Mozilla) that do it must 
 be sleeping through the whole development cycle.

I doubt you want to put Mozilla up as a better managed project than us. 
And the Mozilla roadmap was a joke, and probably helped them fail while
more nimble Firefox took over.

   Of our changes in any major release,
  probably 40% are from the TODO list, and 60% are just patches submitted.
  How does something even get on the TODO list from a patch?
 
 A bug/request tracker?

We have discussed that.  You want tracking or work accomplished?  Pick
one.  Ideally we could do both, but we have finite resources.  I am sure
something like Open Office or one of those big company-funded projects
can do this, but the bureaucracy has its own disadvantages, and I doubt
most of us would accept them.

  To do what you want requires someone with technical knowledge to spend
  serious time analyzing the CVS commits and digesting it into a web page.
 
 Not if the infrastructure is put in place to deal with it in the first 
 place.
 
 If a patch is accepted, when it is accepted a simple message that says:
 
 Accepted for 8.2 + Adds capability to program VCR

We have that in the CVS logs.  Why don't _you_ track the commits and
keep a web site up to date, or someone else?  That's all it takes  ---
take the CVS commits, merge them and summarize them on a web site.  Why
has no one done that yet if it is so needed?

 Pretty much does everything we need.

Go ahead.  No one is stopping someone from doing that?  Do they need
help from the project to do that?  No.

  I can be done, but it isn't the same purpose as the TODO list.
 
 Actually it is. It is called overall project management and it is 
 something that has come up here many times.
 
 I guess I just don't understand why so many other projects larger then us 
 and much smaller then us can do it, but we can't.
 
 Here are some examples of some projects that have actual stated goals that 
 are OSS:
 
 KDE
 Gnome
 Trac
 Django
 Firebird
 Python

Please show me an actual example, not a project list.  I picked Trac at
random and looked at their web site.  The Timeline is a list of message
that all say Sandbox or Ticket.  I don't see how that helps more than
our CVS logs.  I looked at roadmap and it had a few bullet points but
was to small/general.  Our TODO list blows it away in detail and size.

 We do, provide some feedback to what is going on from the web site but the 
 barrier is pretty high in comparison to these other web sites. Not to 
 mention how hard it is to figure out what bugs have been patched or 
 haven't.

Agreed.  We need someone to maintain that.  Who wants to do it?  It only
requires HTML skills, which I think enough people in this project
already have.

Basically, there are two things to track --- what will/might happen
(TODO), and what has happened (CVS).  Right now CVS only becomes visible
when a release happens, and the release notes themselves are abridged,
meaning they don't mention every fix, like fixing the --help argument
display for a command or something.  The TODO does a pretty good job of
what will/might happen, but we could use more work on the pending (not
released yet) changes in CVS, and a release note listing that is more
detailed than what we have now.  I myself am not interested in expending
time in these areas as I am already busy with my current
responsibilities, and I think I am spending my time in the most fruitful
way by concentrating on what I do now.

If I am wrong, please someone tell me why I am wrong.  Don't way we
would like to have X too as well as what we already have, but not supply
any more manpower.  You might as well say you want to live forever, but
not give any way of accomplishing it.

-- 
  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
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Re: [PATCHES] running script on server shutdown (TODO)

2005-12-11 Thread Michael Paesold

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

I guess I just don't understand why so many other projects larger
then us and much smaller then us can do it, but we can't.


Perhaps it is a question of project culture. As I see PostgreSQL 
development, there is no such thing as a roadmap or an agreed plan, what 
the group will implement feature-wise. (Of course everyone agrees that we 
should improve performance, support new SQL standard features, etc... that 
is not my point). I believe it is pretty much each individual's (or backing 
company's) decision, what features they will hack on. If there is interest 
in a feature from more than one person, sometimes they will work together in 
groups on that part. But I don't see anyone making lists of features that 
should be in version X and then say: Let's get this list of work done!.


(Btw. I think this is a strengh of PostgreSQL, not a weakness.)

As Bruce said, if you want to tell what will be in the next release, you can 
only look at CVS commits and discussions. The projects of some people are 
more likely to be in the next release than others, but who knows before the 
patches are committed.


What I would find good for marketing is a list of features that should be in 
the next release (after they have been committed to CVS). Nevertheless this 
is not a trivial task. IIRC Bruce did regular updates to the release notes 
during the development cycle of a release or two ago. He gave it up because 
it cost too much time. Perhaps someone else wants to step up to maintain 
such a list, not as detailed as the release notes probably.


Just my two (Euro)cents.

Best Regards,
Michael Paesold 




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