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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Lane [mailto:tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us]
> Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 12:30 PM
> To: Lamar Owen
> Cc: Dave Page; Vince Vielhaber; Ron Mayer;
> pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org
> Subject: Re: [mail] Re: [HACKERS] Windows Build System
>
>
> Lamar Owen <lamar.owen@wgcr.org> writes:
> > 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.
>
> The point here is that Windows is virgin territory for us.
> We know about Unix.  When we port to a new Unix variant, we
> are dealing with the same system APIs, and in many cases
> large chunks of the same system code, that we've dealt with
> before.  It's reasonable for us to have confidence that
> Postgres will work the same on such a platform as it does on
> other Unix variants.  And the track record of reliability
> that we have built up across a bunch of Unix variants gives
> us cross-pollinating confidence in all of them.
>
> Windows shares none of that heritage.  It is the first truly
> new port, onto a system without any Unix background, that we
> have ever done AFAIK. Claiming that it doesn't require an
> increased level of testing is somewhere between ridiculous
> and irresponsible.
>
> > I believe we should test every release as pathologically as Vince
> > has stated for Win32.
>
> Great, go to it.  That does not alter the fact that today,
> with our existing port history, Windows has to be treated
> with extra suspicion.
>
> I do not buy the argument you are making that we should treat
> all platforms alike.  If we had a ten-year-old Windows port,
> we could consider it as stable as all our other ten-year-old
> Unix ports. We don't.  Given that we don't have infinite
> resources for testing, it's simple rationality to put more
> testing emphasis on the places that we suspect there will be
> problems.  And if you don't suspect there will be problems on
> Windows, you are being way too naive :-(
>
> > 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?').
>
> If it passes the tests, good for it.  I honestly do not
> expect that it will.  My take on this is that we want to be
> able to document the problems in advance, rather than be blindsided.

Our port of 7.1.3 passed every test, including the dynamic loading.

I don't expect the Win32 port to be problematic.