Re: [mail] Re: Windows Build System - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Thursday 30 January 2003 13:34, Tom Lane wrote:
> anyone took anything I said as a personal attack.  It wasn't meant that
> way.

With a <flame on> tag?  Flames are by long tradition personal.  But I
understand that that wasn't the intent -- the <flame on> was more of a
<emphasis> tag.

> Sure, we're on record as not liking Windows.  But:
> > But as to 'industrial strength testing' -- do ANY of our releases get
> > this sort of testing on ANY platform? No, typically it's 'regression
> > passed'  'Ok, it's supported on that platform.'

> Most variants of Unix are known to be pretty stable.  Most variants of
> Unix are known to follow the Unix standard semantics for sync() and
> fsync().  I think we are entirely justified in doubting whether Windows
> is a suitable platform for PG, and in wanting to run tests to find out.

Testing is being done.  Those who are testing it are comfortable so far in its
capabilities.  We will hear about it, loadly, when that changes, I'm sure.

> Yes, we are holding Windows to a higher standard than we would for a
> Unix variant.

Which is pretty ironic, given Win's reputation, right?

> Partly this is a matter of wanting to protect Postgres' reputation.

And here's where the rubber meets the road.  We, like many developers of
software (open source and otherwise) have worked on this for so long and so
hard that we have personified the program and it has become our child, so to
speak.  As a father of four, I know what that can do.  We will protect our
child at any cost, vehemently so.  I for one can recognize this, and further
recognize that _it's_just_a_program_ (!!!!!) and not my child.  This is hard
to do.  We're seeing our child experiment with what we consider to be bad
company, and the defense mechanism is kicking in.

> Just on sheer numbers, if there is a native Windows port then there are
> likely to be huge numbers of people using Postgres on Windows.  If

While I understand (and agree with) your (and Vince's) reasoning on why
Windows should be considered less reliable, neither of you have provided a
sound technical basis for why we should not hold the other ports to the same
standards.  I believe we should test every release as pathologically as Vince
has stated for Win32.  The more reliable we become, the worse our test cases
should become.  Across the board, and not just on Win32.

Do we want to encourage Win32? (some obviously do, but I don't)  Well, telling
people that we have tested PostgreSQL on Win32 much more thoroughly than on
Unix is in a way telling them that we think it is _better_ than the
time-tested Unix ports ('It passed a harder test on Win32.  Are we afraid the
Unix ports won't pass those same tests?').  I for one don't want that to be a
conclusion -- but the 'suits' will see it that way, rest assured.
--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11