Re: Why is CF 2011-11 still listed as "In Progress"? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 7:01 PM, Greg Smith <greg@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:
> I think this is getting more predictable simply based on having some
> history.  The trail blazing you led here for some time didn't know what was
> and wasn't possible yet.  I feel that the basic shape of things, while still
> fuzzy in spots, is a lot more clear now.
>
> We need to have schedule goals.  There needs to be a date where we switch
> toward a more aggressive "is someone going to commit this soon?" stance on
> things that are still open.  At that point, someone needs to be the person
> not afraid to ramp up pressure toward returning things that just aren't
> going to make it to commit quality.  That's a thankless task that rarely
> leaves anyone involved happy.

There's some value in deciding early that there's no hope for a given
patch, because it frees up resources, of which we do not have an
unlimited supply, to deal with other patches.

I have mixed feelings about the whole 4-weeks vs. 6-weeks thing with
respect to the final CommitFest.  If everyone signed up to review as
many patches as they submitted, then on day one of the CommitFest
every patch would have a reviewer, and if anyone who didn't submit
patches signed up as well, some patches would have more than one.  In
a week, they'd all have an initial review, and in two weeks they'd all
have had two reviews, and anything that wasn't ready at that point
could be punted while the committers ground through the rest.  In
fact, we have a gigantic number of patches that have no reviewer
assigned, and as the CommitFest goes on and on, the number of people
who still have the energy to keep slogging through the pile is going
to steadily diminish.  So when we say that we're going to let the
CommitFest go on for 6 weeks, what we're really saying is that we'd
like to reward the few brave souls who will actually keep plugging at
this for 4 weeks by asking them to go another 2 weeks after that.  Or
in some cases, what we're saying that we'd like to give patch authors
another two weeks to finish work that should really have been done
before submitting the patch in the first place.

Now, on the flip side, I think that if we get the CommitFest done in 6
weeks, that will be almost as good as getting it done in 4 weeks,
because the last two release cycles I've put huge amounts of energy
into trying to get the release stable enough to release before July
and August roll around and everybody disappears.  It didn't work,
either time.  If that's not going to happen anyway, then there's not
really much point in getting stressed about another week or two.  On
the other hand, speaking only for myself, if I review and/or commit 15
patches in the next month - i.e. three times the number I've
submitted, and note that most of what I've submitted for this
CommitFest is pretty simple stuff - I'm not going to be very
enthusiastic about taking another weeks to pick up 7 or 8 more.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company