Re: Alpha Releases: Docs? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

Josh Berkus wrote:
> 
> > What I would like to avoid is a situation where we're basically ready
> > to go with beta and Bruce says, "Hold on, everybody, it's going to
> > take another two weeks while I plow through 600 commit messages."  I
> > have a theory that that work can be spread out and much of it done in
> > advance and not necessarily by Bruce.  However, that theory has yet to
> > be tested, and the committers (principally Tom and Bruce) have to be
> > open to it for it to have any chance of success.
> 
> I just talked to Bruce on IM, and he said that he would NOT use any
> release notes we produce no matter how good they are.
> 
> Therefore, us trying to help by producing alpha release notes is a waste
> of time; I won't bother.
> 
> Instead, I'll just write up a brief, informal user-friendly list of
> features and changes, and we can release that combined with the cvslog.

Sorry I didn't chime in yesterday;  I am still 3.7k community emails
backlogged.

As far as the release notes, I think we would have to have proof that
the alpha-generated release notes are as good or close to the quality of
the release notes using the current process.  If they are, we can use
them for 8.6, or even for 8.5 if the quality is similar, but we can't
know that without creating identical release notes for 8.5 and comparing
them, to make sure the alpha process has not missed any items, etc. 
What we don't want to do is switch to a new process for creating the
release notes, and only later realize we missed stuff or there was some
subtle change that caused inaccuracies.  Remember, we are database guys. :-)

This is going to follow the same process as the patch application/commit
fest changes;  I am glad to give up the burden of creating the release
notes (and I think Tom is too) but we have to have something as good or
better before making the switch.  This happened for the patch
application process, and it might happen with the release notes too, but
we have to do duplicate work while we are testing out the new system.

(I frankly think the economies of scale
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_scale) for the release notes
are going to make creating them during alpha much harder, but I am
willing to be proven wrong.  I am not willing to expend effort to create
alpha release notes because it is too hard to fit into my workload.)

As far as the alpha releases, I am still worried about the use of the
word "alpha".  I am worried someone is going to look at 8.4alpha1 and
think that represents most of the features that will be in 8.5final, and
will think the Postgres project is losing momentum.  I would much rather
they be called Commit Feast 1 (CF1), or something like that.

--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://enterprisedb.com
 + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +