From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
Message-Id: <200705011452.l41EqPN10520@momjian.us>
Subject: Re: Feature freeze progress report
In-Reply-To: <4636F29F.8000001@postgresql.org>
To: Dave Page <dpage@postgresql.org>
Date: Tue, 1 May 2007 10:52:25 -0400 (EDT)
CC: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>,
 Heikki Linnakangas <heikki@enterprisedb.com>,
	Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com>,
	PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
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Dave Page wrote:
> > The bottom line is that there is a lot of thinking that the patch queue
> > is so large because no one knows what to do.  "Oh, if we were better
> > communicators, more would be done".  The patch queue is large because we
> > have lots of March 31 patches, and because we don't have enough people
> > to review them quickly.
> 
> Thats is true, but there are also patches in there that have been there
> for quite some time adn have had little or no feedback. Consider
> Heikki's grouped index items patch
> (http://momjian.us/mhonarc/patches/msg00032.html). That thread starts on
> 7th March when he posted an update because the old one had bitrotted.
> There are six messages in the thread on the patch queue, four of which
> say "message no available", and the last means little without the
> preceeding messages.
> 
> When a committer comes to look at this, if he's not sure of something
> he's going to be wasting time searching the archives to find all the
> different thread fragments that make up the various discussions on the
> topic, and those related to each individual revision of the patch. That
> has got to be part of what makes reviewing patches both hard, and
> uninteresting work. If we can make it easier and quicker, even with just
> the current committers we might have found that one of you were able
> (and keen) to review much more quickly.

The bottom line is if you had a system that was 100% perfect in
capturing all information about a patch, it only helps us 2% toward
reviewing the patch, and what is the cost of keeping 100% information?

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>          http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                               http://www.enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +