Subject: Feature freeze

From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2025 10:36:45 -0400

Since we recorded feature freeze as April 8, 2025 0:00 AoE (anywhere on
Earth):

	https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_18_Open_Items#Important_Dates
	https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe

and it is now 2:34 AM AoE, I guess we are now in feature freeze.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <[email-masked]>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.

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From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2025 10:59:26 -0400

> and it is now 2:34 AM AoE, I guess we are now in feature freeze.

Frankly, I think the name "anywhere on Earth" is confusing, since it
really is "everywhere on Earth":

	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anywhere_on_Earth

	Anywhere on Earth (AoE) is a calendar designation that indicates
	that a period expires when the date passes everywhere on Earth.

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From: Daniel Gustafsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2025 17:13:15 +0200

> On 8 Apr 2025, at 16:59, Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

I find both of the above needlessly confusing when we instead could use UTC
which is a more universally understood concept.

--
Daniel Gustafsson

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From: Nathan Bossart <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2025 10:20:35 -0500

> which is a more universally understood concept.

+1 for UTC.

-- 
nathan

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From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2025 11:53:58 -0400

On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 11:45:09AM -0400, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 11:20 AM Nathan Bossart <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > +1 for UTC.
> 
> +1, I think that AoE is needlessly obscure

We did have this discussion when AoE was chosen for PG 18 and the idea
was that as long as it is before April 18 midnight wherever you are, it
is not feature freeze yet.

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From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2025 12:11:02 -0400

On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 06:00:27PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 08.04.25 16:59, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Yes, that works intuitively when you specify that sometimes ends when a
> certain day ends, for example:
> 
> "The feature development phase ends at the end of day of April 7, AoE."
> 
> That means, everyone everywhere can just look up at their clock and see,
> it's still April 7, it's still going.  (Of course, others can then do the
> analysis and keep going until some time on April 8, but that would be sort
> of against the spirit.)
> 
> If you use it as a time zone with a time of day, it doesn't make intuitive
> sense.

Well, they kind of did this by saying midnight on April 8 AoE, rather
than end-of-day in April 7 AoE.  Actually, I had originally said April 8
AoE and then was told I had to specify a time --- maybe the time was the
mistake, and we still have April 8 to add features.   ;-)

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From: Nathan Bossart <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2025 11:24:39 -0500

> analysis and keep going until some time on April 8, but that would be sort

I always forget if AoE is UTC+12 or UTC-12.  "Anywhere on Earth" sounds to
me like it means "the first moment it's this time anywhere on Earth," which
would be some point during April 7th for me.  So every year, I go to
Wikipedia, which reminds me it actually means "the moment this time has
passed everywhere on Earth."  At this point, I can finally convert to UTC
and then to my own time zone in my head.

If we just said April 8th, 12:00:00 UTC, I'd immediately know that my
entire April 7th was fair game.  Of course, I hope to usually be done
committing things much earlier...

-- 
nathan

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From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2025 11:39:22 -0500

On Tue, Apr 08, 2025 at 11:24:39AM -0500, Nathan Bossart wrote:
> I always forget if AoE is UTC+12 or UTC-12.  [...]

One isn't supposed to think "is the freeze on everywhere", just "is the
freeze on for me" and "is the freeze on for this particular contribution
(check the date header)".

Nico
--

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From: John Naylor <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2025 13:56:35 +0700

> which is a more universally understood concept.

Indeed, that's what the "U" stands for, after all. :-)

-- 
John Naylor
Amazon Web Services