Andrew Dunstan writes:Well, I didn't mean "hit and run" team ;-). I take your point, though. However, some projects will need a big effort up front - Bugzilla certainly will. I am doing some work on it but any help will be appreciated. Part of the problem is that there is no layering of the app, separating out the logical and physical views. So instead of a nice procedural layer where one could concentrate the creation of Db-specific SQL, it is littered throughout the app. Some of the issues include:
Seriously, I have wondered if it might be a good idea to assemble a
small "hit team" that would take some high profile open source projects
and make sure they worked with Postgres. Bugzilla would be the most
obvious candidate, but there are certainly others. I suspect that could
be quite productive, though.
Good thought, but a hit team is not the right answer, because any project that would have been "hit" in this way will just go bad again the moment its database layer is changed. What would work better are "consultants": people that hang around on the other project's mailing lists, offer advise on database layer modelling and implementation, do clean up tasks, check regularly if everything works with the PG development branch, be there when the developers of that other project have a question. I've been doing a bit of that, and my sensation is that most developers of database-backed applications are dying to have people like that at their disposal.
. efficient replacement of the enumerated types
. transactional safety
. properly replacing the calles to "replace into"
. full text searching
. migration scripts
As you can see, doing it properly is quite a big job.
However, I also think that there is value in identifying those projects that will give the best bang for the buck for our project, and then trying to concentrate some resources on those. Your suggestion elsewhere of "pick your second favourite app" is likely to result in a more scattergun approach. Also, if it had the imprimatur of the PostgreSQL community to some extent appraoches to projects might be more welcome - "Dear open-source-project-manager, on behalf of the PostgrSQL community we would like to offer you assistance in making sure your application works with PostgrSQL, the world's most advanced open-source database system...."
cheers
andrew
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