Re: Release in 2 weeks ...

Morning all ...

Are there any major outstandings that ppl have on their plates,
that should prevent a release? I'd like to put out an RC1 by Friday this
week, with a full release schedualed for March 15th ... this would give
Thomas his two weeks for the docs freeze ...

Basically, RC1 would say to ppl that we're ready to release, there
will be no more core changes that will require an initdb ... feel
comfortable using this version in production, with the only major changes
between now and release being docs related ...

Does this work? Or is there something earth-shattering that still
has to be done?

Marc G. Fournier ICQ#7615664 IRC Nick: Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org secondary: scrappy(at){freebsd|postgresql}.org

The Hermit Hacker wrote:
>
> Morning all ...
>
> Are there any major outstandings that ppl have on their plates,
> that should prevent a release? I'd like to put out an RC1 by Friday this
> week, with a full release schedualed for March 15th ... this would give
> Thomas his two weeks for the docs freeze ...
>
> Basically, RC1 would say to ppl that we're ready to release, there
> will be no more core changes that will require an initdb ... feel
> comfortable using this version in production, with the only major changes
> between now and release being docs related ...
>
> Does this work? Or is there something earth-shattering that still
> has to be done?

Yep ! As of beta4, the ODBC driver is still seriously broken (the
original libpsqlodbc.so.0.26 doesn't even connect. A version patched by
Nick Gorham allows some connectivity (you can query the DB), but still
has some serious breakage (i. e. no "obvious" ways to see views from
StarOffice or MS-Access)).

And I have not yet had any opportunity to test the JDBC driver.

[ Explanation : I follow the Debian packages prepared by Oliver Elphick,
I'm not versed enough in Debian to recreate those packages myself, and I
do *not* want to break Debian dependencies by installing Postgres "The
Wrong Way (TM)". Hence, I'm stuck with beta4, a broken ODBC and no JDBC.
Unless some kind soul can send me a JD. 1.1 .jar file ...

Furthermore, I've had some serious hardware troubles (a dying IDE disk).
I wasn't even able to fulfill Tom Lane's suggestion to try to add -d2 to
my postmaster to debug the ODBC connection. I'll try to do that Real
Soon Now (TM, again), but not for now : my day-work backlog is ...
impressive. ]

These issues might seem small change to you die-hard plpgsql hackers. To
a lmot of people using Postgres for everyday office work through "nice"
interface, it's bread-and-butter, and these issues *should* be fixed
*before* release ...

[ crawling back under my rock ... ]

Emmanuel Charpentier

The Hermit Hacker writes:

> Are there any major outstandings that ppl have on their plates,
> that should prevent a release? I'd like to put out an RC1 by Friday this
> week, with a full release schedualed for March 15th ... this would give
> Thomas his two weeks for the docs freeze ...

I'm interested to know what exactly takes two weeks with the docs and what
could be done to speed it up.

--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net http://yi.org/peter-e/

Emmanuel Charpentier <charpent(at)bacbuc(dot)dyndns(dot)org> writes:
> Yep ! As of beta4, the ODBC driver is still seriously broken (the
> original libpsqlodbc.so.0.26 doesn't even connect. A version patched by
> Nick Gorham allows some connectivity (you can query the DB), but still
> has some serious breakage (i. e. no "obvious" ways to see views from
> StarOffice or MS-Access)).

I'd be willing to work harder on ODBC if I had any way to test it ;-).

I have a copy of OpenOffice for LinuxPPC but have not figured out how to
tell it to connect to Postgres. If someone can slip me a clue on how to
configure it and do simple database stuff with it, I'll try to clean up
the most pressing ODBC problems before we release.

regards, tom lane

Tom Lane wrote:
>
> Emmanuel Charpentier <charpent(at)bacbuc(dot)dyndns(dot)org> writes:
> > Yep ! As of beta4, the ODBC driver is still seriously broken (the
> > original libpsqlodbc.so.0.26 doesn't even connect. A version patched by
> > Nick Gorham allows some connectivity (you can query the DB), but still
> > has some serious breakage (i. e. no "obvious" ways to see views from
> > StarOffice or MS-Access)).
>

I think I've fixed this bug at least for MS-Access.
You could get the latest win32 driver from
ftp://ftp.greatbridge.org/pub/pgadmin/stable/psqlodbc.zip .
Please try it.

However I'm not sure about unixODBC.

Regards,
Hiroshi Inoue

> > Are there any major outstandings that ppl have on their plates,
> > that should prevent a release? I'd like to put out an RC1 by Friday this
> > week, with a full release schedualed for March 15th ... this would give
> > Thomas his two weeks for the docs freeze ...
> I'm interested to know what exactly takes two weeks with the docs and what
> could be done to speed it up.

The "official" version of the story is that it takes ~10-20 hours for me
to work through the docs to format them for hardcopy with ApplixWare,
primarily because something in the jade RTF tickles a bug in the page
formatting with Applix. (This round, I'll resort even to M$Word to avoid
that time sink, since I just don't have the time.)

The reality is that it is a two week quiet time for us to get the last
bugs out and to get the last platform-specific reports. At this moment
we have not started the "report now or risk having a broken platform"
threats that help iron out the last problems.

Scrappy has proposed that we start that period now. Were the concerns
about WAL etc enough to hold off on that, or are we counting down from
now?

- Thomas

> I have a copy of OpenOffice for LinuxPPC but have not figured out how to
> tell it to connect to Postgres. If someone can slip me a clue on how to
> configure it and do simple database stuff with it, I'll try to clean up
> the most pressing ODBC problems before we release.

I've got a clue for ApplixWare, if you happen to have that package
(US$90).

- Thomas

Thomas Lockhart <lockhart(at)alumni(dot)caltech(dot)edu> writes:
>> I'm interested to know what exactly takes two weeks with the docs and what
>> could be done to speed it up.

> The "official" version of the story is that it takes ~10-20 hours for me
> to work through the docs to format them for hardcopy with ApplixWare,
> primarily because something in the jade RTF tickles a bug in the page
> formatting with Applix.

I'm sure anything that could be done to eliminate this formatting
make-work would be just fine with Thomas ;-). However, it probably
wouldn't really change the release scheduling much, since as he points
out it's partially an excuse for clamping down:

> The reality is that it is a two week quiet time for us to get the last
> bugs out and to get the last platform-specific reports.

In short, now is our "okay people, let's get *serious*" phase.
No features, no trivial stuff, just get the critical bugs out.

> Scrappy has proposed that we start that period now. Were the concerns
> about WAL etc enough to hold off on that, or are we counting down from
> now?

I'm pretty concerned about WAL, but have no good reason not to start
the release countdown.

regards, tom lane

On Tue, 27 Feb 2001, Tom Lane wrote:

> > Scrappy has proposed that we start that period now. Were the concerns
> > about WAL etc enough to hold off on that, or are we counting down from
> > now?
>
> I'm pretty concerned about WAL, but have no good reason not to start
> the release countdown.

Figuring a 15th of March release right now, Vadim is back on the 6th (or
so), so that would essentially be the last 'critical bug' ...

Just curious ... Vadim posted yesterday about 'fixes' for WAL related
stuff ... stuff he wanted to ppl to try out ... has anyone? I didn't see
anyone respond to his post, so am wondering if nobody but myself saw it
...

Thomas Lockhart writes:

> The "official" version of the story is that it takes ~10-20 hours for me
> to work through the docs to format them for hardcopy with ApplixWare,

Okay, I just kept hearing the "give Thomas 2 weeks for the docs" theme...

> primarily because something in the jade RTF tickles a bug in the page
> formatting with Applix. (This round, I'll resort even to M$Word to avoid
> that time sink, since I just don't have the time.)

Is that the same MS Word that generates Postscript files as a big bitmap?

I suppose by the time we release the 10th anniversary edition, the XML/XSL
architecture will be mature enough to produce printable files that way,
but until then -- whatever works.

--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net http://yi.org/peter-e/

> > primarily because something in the jade RTF tickles a bug in the page
> > formatting with Applix. (This round, I'll resort even to M$Word to avoid
> > that time sink, since I just don't have the time.)
> Is that the same MS Word that generates Postscript files as a big bitmap?
> I suppose by the time we release the 10th anniversary edition, the XML/XSL
> architecture will be mature enough to produce printable files that way,
> but until then -- whatever works.

I'm not counting on it even then. Some "last minute markup" will always
be required imho. But I dream about it ;)

- Thomas

On Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 08:53:31AM +0900, Hiroshi Inoue wrote:
...
> I think I've fixed this bug at least for MS-Access.
> You could get the latest win32 driver from
> ftp://ftp.greatbridge.org/pub/pgadmin/stable/psqlodbc.zip .
> Please try it.

How can I just install that file? (ie., M$ Access -> psqlodbc.dll -> real OS)

===== aside:

I just tried installing pgAdmin - the installer says:

This setup requires at least version 2.5 of the Microsoft Data Access
Components (MDAC) to be installed first. If the MDAC installer
(mdac_typ.exe) is not provided with this setup, you can find it on the
Microsoft web site (www.microsoft.com)

And after searching said website,
http://www.microsoft.com/data/download2.htm
shows:

Microsoft Data Access Components MDAC 2.1.1.3711.11 < 2.5...

Cheers,

Patrick

Patrick Welche wrote:
>
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 08:53:31AM +0900, Hiroshi Inoue wrote:
> ...
> > I think I've fixed this bug at least for MS-Access.
> > You could get the latest win32 driver from
> > ftp://ftp.greatbridge.org/pub/pgadmin/stable/psqlodbc.zip .
> > Please try it.
>
> How can I just install that file? (ie., M$ Access -> psqlodbc.dll -> real OS)
>

I don't know if M$-access requires MDAC now(it didn't require
MDAC before). I use ADO and don't use M$-access other than
testing. ADO requires MDAC and pgAdmin uses ADO AFAIK.

> ===== aside:
>
> I just tried installing pgAdmin - the installer says:
>
> This setup requires at least version 2.5 of the Microsoft Data Access
> Components (MDAC) to be installed first. If the MDAC installer
> (mdac_typ.exe) is not provided with this setup, you can find it on the
> Microsoft web site (www.microsoft.com)
>
> And after searching said website,
> http://www.microsoft.com/data/download2.htm
> shows:
>
> Microsoft Data Access Components MDAC 2.1.1.3711.11 < 2.5...
>

I can see the following at http://www.microsoft.com/data/download.htm

Data Access Components (MDAC) redistribution releases.
Five releases of MDAC are available here: The new MDAC
2.6, two of MDAC 2.5, and two of MDAC 2.1. You can

Regards,
Hiroshi Inoue

At 11:52 26/02/01 -0400, The Hermit Hacker wrote:

>Morning all ...
>
> Are there any major outstandings that ppl have on their plates,
>that should prevent a release? I'd like to put out an RC1 by Friday this
>week, with a full release schedualed for March 15th ... this would give
>Thomas his two weeks for the docs freeze ...

It will also give me a little extra time. This week has been a tad busy
work wise for me I've not been able to do anything at all (only now have I
been able to find time to download the 800 emails that were waiting for me
:-( )

> Basically, RC1 would say to ppl that we're ready to release, there
>will be no more core changes that will require an initdb ... feel
>comfortable using this version in production, with the only major changes
>between now and release being docs related ...
>
> Does this work? Or is there something earth-shattering that still
>has to be done?

Not on my front except:

JDBC1.2 driver needs testing (still can't get JDK1.1.8 to install here).
The JDBC 2.1 Enterprise Edition driver also needs some testing.

The JDBC2.1 Standard Edition driver is ready. Some new patches to look at.

PS: Did you know we are only 1 thing short of being JDBC compliant with the
JDBC2.1 SE driver?

The other not implemented bits are extras not technically (according to the
spec) needed for compliance. But then there's not many of them either
(about 11 at last count excluding CallableStatement - which isn't required
which I was surprised about when I check it last weekend).

Peter

At 17:54 27/02/01 +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>The Hermit Hacker writes:
>
> > Are there any major outstandings that ppl have on their plates,
> > that should prevent a release? I'd like to put out an RC1 by Friday this
> > week, with a full release schedualed for March 15th ... this would give
> > Thomas his two weeks for the docs freeze ...
>
>I'm interested to know what exactly takes two weeks with the docs and what
>could be done to speed it up.

Isn't it the typsetting for the postscript/pdf docs? docbook doesn't handle
tables too well in those cases and its easier to do them by hand?

Peter

>--
>Peter Eisentraut peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net http://yi.org/peter-e/

First, a warning is in order. This will modify your registry. I have no
idea how it might behave on win2000, but should work for win9x. As
always, it's wise to backup your registry first. Use at your own risk.

If you already have some version of the PG odbc driver installed, you can
just copy psqlodbc.dll over the old one. If not, you have to "install"
it. There is an installer if you want to use it, but I think it only has
the old version so you will have to copy the new psqlodbc.dll over this
old one. Or, if you want to, you can use the attached .reg file to modify
your registry. I'm told that this is all the installer does anyway.
Give it a try.

-Cedar

On Thu, 1 Mar 2001, Patrick Welche wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 08:53:31AM +0900, Hiroshi Inoue wrote:
> ...
> > I think I've fixed this bug at least for MS-Access.
> > You could get the latest win32 driver from
> > ftp://ftp.greatbridge.org/pub/pgadmin/stable/psqlodbc.zip .
> > Please try it.
>
> How can I just install that file? (ie., M$ Access -> psqlodbc.dll -> real OS)

On Thu, Mar 01, 2001 at 11:05:02AM +0900, Hiroshi Inoue wrote:
> Patrick Welche wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 08:53:31AM +0900, Hiroshi Inoue wrote:
> > ...
> > > I think I've fixed this bug at least for MS-Access.
> > > You could get the latest win32 driver from
> > > ftp://ftp.greatbridge.org/pub/pgadmin/stable/psqlodbc.zip .
> > > Please try it.
> >
> > How can I just install that file? (ie., M$ Access -> psqlodbc.dll -> real OS)
> >
>
> I don't know if M$-access requires MDAC now(it didn't require
> MDAC before). I use ADO and don't use M$-access other than
> testing. ADO requires MDAC and pgAdmin uses ADO AFAIK.

Indeed M$-access doesn't need it. Thanks to Emmanuel and Cedar for the
explanation (also my fault for having searched for psqlodbc with "partial
match" to find it in c:\winnt\system32)

...
> > And after searching said website,
> > http://www.microsoft.com/data/download2.htm
> > shows:
> >
> > Microsoft Data Access Components MDAC 2.1.1.3711.11 < 2.5...
> >
>
> I can see the following at http://www.microsoft.com/data/download.htm

Now how come you found download.htm and I got download2.htm?! Thanks a lot!

Cheers,

Patrick