Re: Releasing in September - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Simon Riggs
Subject Re: Releasing in September
Date
Msg-id CANP8+j+y13CNgM9CsybgKVBHF_-5H1gU3FgShBKcEjdxE4T+MA@mail.gmail.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Releasing in September  (Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>)
List pgsql-hackers
On 22 January 2016 at 05:07, Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 06:58:24PM +0000, Simon Riggs wrote:
> The main problem is the length of the integration phase, which is mostly
> where nothing happens.

The open items wiki page saw steady change from 30 April to 28 December[1];
the two longest quiet periods were an eleven-day gap from 21 August and a
nine-day gap from 16 December.  Nineteen distinct contributors were finding,
fixing or otherwise editing data about 9.5 defects.  The integration work is
too slow, yes, but this persistent myth of a dead period is false.

For my part, I spent 1 July to 11 December reviewing 9.5 commits and reporting
or fixing defective 9.5 work.  (I did spoil myself with a few breaks fixing
pre-9.5 bugs.)  I doubt the 9.5 new bugs would have run dry within the next
five months, either, but the release team picked a fair juncture to give up
and call it dot-zero.

nm

[1] https://wiki.postgresql.org/index.php?title=PostgreSQL_9.5_Open_Items&limit=500&action=history

Thanks for explaining that, and thanks for that work. Had I known you were doing that I wouldn't have said "nothing happens".

What I do observe is that we have N developers writing patches, C committers committing patches and R people reviewing things during the integration phase.

N > C > R so that N >> R

Meaning that during the integration phase our parallel efficiency drops significantly, but as you say, not to zero. Given that the integration phase is frequently at least as long as the development phase we end up operating at about 0.5-0.6 of maximum efficiency. I would like to improve on that, if possible.

I'll do what I can to shorten the integration phase, including the prioritization/triage step I volunteered for, applied to the last CF.

--
Simon Riggs                http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

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