Horton

Thread

  1. Feature freeze

    Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> — 2025-04-08T14:36:45Z

    Since we recorded feature freeze as April 8, 2025 0:00 AoE (anywhere on
Earth):

	https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_18_Open_Items#Important_Dates
	https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe

and it is now 2:34 AM AoE, I guess we are now in feature freeze.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.

  2. Re: Feature freeze

    Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> — 2025-04-08T14:59:26Z

    On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 10:36:45AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Since we recorded feature freeze as April 8, 2025 0:00 AoE (anywhere on
> Earth):
> 
> 	https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_18_Open_Items#Important_Dates
> 	https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe
> 
> and it is now 2:34 AM AoE, I guess we are now in feature freeze.

Frankly, I think the name "anywhere on Earth" is confusing, since it
really is "everywhere on Earth":

	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anywhere_on_Earth

	Anywhere on Earth (AoE) is a calendar designation that indicates
	that a period expires when the date passes everywhere on Earth.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.

  3. Re: Feature freeze

    Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> — 2025-04-08T15:13:15Z

    > On 8 Apr 2025, at 16:59, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 10:36:45AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>> Since we recorded feature freeze as April 8, 2025 0:00 AoE (anywhere on
>> Earth):
>> 
>> https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_18_Open_Items#Important_Dates
>> https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe
>> 
>> and it is now 2:34 AM AoE, I guess we are now in feature freeze.
> 
> Frankly, I think the name "anywhere on Earth" is confusing, since it
> really is "everywhere on Earth":

I find both of the above needlessly confusing when we instead could use UTC
which is a more universally understood concept.

--
Daniel Gustafsson

  4. Re: Feature freeze

    Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> — 2025-04-08T15:19:31Z

    Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> writes:
> On 8 Apr 2025, at 16:59, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
>> Frankly, I think the name "anywhere on Earth" is confusing, since it
>> really is "everywhere on Earth":

> I find both of the above needlessly confusing when we instead could use UTC
> which is a more universally understood concept.

Yeah, I always have to mentally translate "0:00 AoE" to "noon UTC",
and then I can figure out when it is.  I'd prefer we used the UTC
formulation.

			regards, tom lane

  5. Re: Feature freeze

    Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com> — 2025-04-08T15:20:35Z

    On Tue, Apr 08, 2025 at 05:13:15PM +0200, Daniel Gustafsson wrote:
>> On 8 Apr 2025, at 16:59, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
>> Frankly, I think the name "anywhere on Earth" is confusing, since it
>> really is "everywhere on Earth":
> 
> I find both of the above needlessly confusing when we instead could use UTC
> which is a more universally understood concept.

+1 for UTC.

-- 
nathan

  6. Re: Feature freeze

    Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie> — 2025-04-08T15:45:09Z

    On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 11:20 AM Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com> wrote:
> +1 for UTC.

+1, I think that AoE is needlessly obscure

-- 
Peter Geoghegan

  7. Re: Feature freeze

    Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> — 2025-04-08T15:53:58Z

    On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 11:45:09AM -0400, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 11:20 AM Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com> wrote:
> > +1 for UTC.
> 
> +1, I think that AoE is needlessly obscure

We did have this discussion when AoE was chosen for PG 18 and the idea
was that as long as it is before April 18 midnight wherever you are, it
is not feature freeze yet.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.

  8. Re: Feature freeze

    Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> — 2025-04-08T15:54:21Z

    On 2025-04-08 Tu 11:45 AM, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 11:20 AM Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com> wrote:
>> +1 for UTC.
> +1, I think that AoE is needlessly obscure
>

+1


cheers


andrew

--
Andrew Dunstan
EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com

  9. Re: Feature freeze

    Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> — 2025-04-08T16:00:27Z

    On 08.04.25 16:59, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 10:36:45AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>> Since we recorded feature freeze as April 8, 2025 0:00 AoE (anywhere on
>> Earth):
>>
>> 	https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_18_Open_Items#Important_Dates
>> 	https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe
>>
>> and it is now 2:34 AM AoE, I guess we are now in feature freeze.
> 
> Frankly, I think the name "anywhere on Earth" is confusing, since it
> really is "everywhere on Earth":
> 
> 	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anywhere_on_Earth
> 
> 	Anywhere on Earth (AoE) is a calendar designation that indicates
> 	that a period expires when the date passes everywhere on Earth.

Yes, that works intuitively when you specify that sometimes ends when a 
certain day ends, for example:

"The feature development phase ends at the end of day of April 7, AoE."

That means, everyone everywhere can just look up at their clock and see, 
it's still April 7, it's still going.  (Of course, others can then do 
the analysis and keep going until some time on April 8, but that would 
be sort of against the spirit.)

If you use it as a time zone with a time of day, it doesn't make 
intuitive sense.

  10. Re: Feature freeze

    Joe Conway <mail@joeconway.com> — 2025-04-08T16:02:46Z

    On 4/8/25 11:20, Nathan Bossart wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 08, 2025 at 05:13:15PM +0200, Daniel Gustafsson wrote:
>>> On 8 Apr 2025, at 16:59, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
>>> Frankly, I think the name "anywhere on Earth" is confusing, since it
>>> really is "everywhere on Earth":
>> 
>> I find both of the above needlessly confusing when we instead could use UTC
>> which is a more universally understood concept.
> 
> +1 for UTC.

+1

Seems to me we had this exact conversation at the last dev meeting in 
Ottawa. How do we capture the decision for future versions of ourselves 
to easily remember?

-- 
Joe Conway
PostgreSQL Contributors Team
RDS Open Source Databases
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com

  11. Re: Feature freeze

    Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> — 2025-04-08T16:11:02Z

    On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 06:00:27PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 08.04.25 16:59, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 10:36:45AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > Since we recorded feature freeze as April 8, 2025 0:00 AoE (anywhere on
> > > Earth):
> > > 
> > > 	https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_18_Open_Items#Important_Dates
> > > 	https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe
> > > 
> > > and it is now 2:34 AM AoE, I guess we are now in feature freeze.
> > 
> > Frankly, I think the name "anywhere on Earth" is confusing, since it
> > really is "everywhere on Earth":
> > 
> > 	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anywhere_on_Earth
> > 
> > 	Anywhere on Earth (AoE) is a calendar designation that indicates
> > 	that a period expires when the date passes everywhere on Earth.
> 
> Yes, that works intuitively when you specify that sometimes ends when a
> certain day ends, for example:
> 
> "The feature development phase ends at the end of day of April 7, AoE."
> 
> That means, everyone everywhere can just look up at their clock and see,
> it's still April 7, it's still going.  (Of course, others can then do the
> analysis and keep going until some time on April 8, but that would be sort
> of against the spirit.)
> 
> If you use it as a time zone with a time of day, it doesn't make intuitive
> sense.

Well, they kind of did this by saying midnight on April 8 AoE, rather
than end-of-day in April 7 AoE.  Actually, I had originally said April 8
AoE and then was told I had to specify a time --- maybe the time was the
mistake, and we still have April 8 to add features.   ;-)

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.

  12. Re: Feature freeze

    Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi> — 2025-04-08T16:23:44Z

    On 08/04/2025 19:11, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 06:00:27PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> On 08.04.25 16:59, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>>> On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 10:36:45AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>>>> Since we recorded feature freeze as April 8, 2025 0:00 AoE (anywhere on
>>>> Earth):
>>>>
>>>> 	https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_18_Open_Items#Important_Dates
>>>> 	https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe
>>>>
>>>> and it is now 2:34 AM AoE, I guess we are now in feature freeze.
>>>
>>> Frankly, I think the name "anywhere on Earth" is confusing, since it
>>> really is "everywhere on Earth":
>>>
>>> 	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anywhere_on_Earth
>>>
>>> 	Anywhere on Earth (AoE) is a calendar designation that indicates
>>> 	that a period expires when the date passes everywhere on Earth.
>>
>> Yes, that works intuitively when you specify that sometimes ends when a
>> certain day ends, for example:
>>
>> "The feature development phase ends at the end of day of April 7, AoE."
>>
>> That means, everyone everywhere can just look up at their clock and see,
>> it's still April 7, it's still going.  (Of course, others can then do the
>> analysis and keep going until some time on April 8, but that would be sort
>> of against the spirit.)
>>
>> If you use it as a time zone with a time of day, it doesn't make intuitive
>> sense.
> 
> Well, they kind of did this by saying midnight on April 8 AoE, rather
> than end-of-day in April 7 AoE.  Actually, I had originally said April 8
> AoE and then was told I had to specify a time --- maybe the time was the
> mistake, and we still have April 8 to add features.   ;-)

At the end of the day (pun not intended), it doesn't matter much. 
Nothing special happens when the feature freeze begins. If some 
committers interpret it a little differently, it doesn't matter.

That said, +1 for using UTC in the future for clarity.

- Heikki

  13. Re: Feature freeze

    Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com> — 2025-04-08T16:24:39Z

    On Tue, Apr 08, 2025 at 06:00:27PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 08.04.25 16:59, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>> 	Anywhere on Earth (AoE) is a calendar designation that indicates
>> 	that a period expires when the date passes everywhere on Earth.
> 
> Yes, that works intuitively when you specify that sometimes ends when a
> certain day ends, for example:
> 
> "The feature development phase ends at the end of day of April 7, AoE."
> 
> That means, everyone everywhere can just look up at their clock and see,
> it's still April 7, it's still going.  (Of course, others can then do the
> analysis and keep going until some time on April 8, but that would be sort
> of against the spirit.)

I always forget if AoE is UTC+12 or UTC-12.  "Anywhere on Earth" sounds to
me like it means "the first moment it's this time anywhere on Earth," which
would be some point during April 7th for me.  So every year, I go to
Wikipedia, which reminds me it actually means "the moment this time has
passed everywhere on Earth."  At this point, I can finally convert to UTC
and then to my own time zone in my head.

If we just said April 8th, 12:00:00 UTC, I'd immediately know that my
entire April 7th was fair game.  Of course, I hope to usually be done
committing things much earlier...

-- 
nathan

  14. Re: Feature freeze

    Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> — 2025-04-08T16:29:44Z

    On 2025-04-08 Tu 12:11 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 06:00:27PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> On 08.04.25 16:59, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>>> On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 10:36:45AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>>>> Since we recorded feature freeze as April 8, 2025 0:00 AoE (anywhere on
>>>> Earth):
>>>>
>>>> 	https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_18_Open_Items#Important_Dates
>>>> 	https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe
>>>>
>>>> and it is now 2:34 AM AoE, I guess we are now in feature freeze.
>>> Frankly, I think the name "anywhere on Earth" is confusing, since it
>>> really is "everywhere on Earth":
>>>
>>> 	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anywhere_on_Earth
>>>
>>> 	Anywhere on Earth (AoE) is a calendar designation that indicates
>>> 	that a period expires when the date passes everywhere on Earth.
>> Yes, that works intuitively when you specify that sometimes ends when a
>> certain day ends, for example:
>>
>> "The feature development phase ends at the end of day of April 7, AoE."
>>
>> That means, everyone everywhere can just look up at their clock and see,
>> it's still April 7, it's still going.  (Of course, others can then do the
>> analysis and keep going until some time on April 8, but that would be sort
>> of against the spirit.)
>>
>> If you use it as a time zone with a time of day, it doesn't make intuitive
>> sense.
> Well, they kind of did this by saying midnight on April 8 AoE, rather
> than end-of-day in April 7 AoE.  Actually, I had originally said April 8
> AoE and then was told I had to specify a time --- maybe the time was the
> mistake, and we still have April 8 to add features.   ;-)
>


The fact that there is this confusion is an indication that the AoE 
experiment is a failure. If it's not obvious, and people have to think 
about it, then it's not working. And I bet there is a huge number of 
people who have never even heard of it. Specify some time and data at 
UTC and everyone will understand.


cheers


andrew

--
Andrew Dunstan
EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com

  15. Re: Feature freeze

    Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com> — 2025-04-08T16:39:22Z

    On Tue, Apr 08, 2025 at 11:24:39AM -0500, Nathan Bossart wrote:
> I always forget if AoE is UTC+12 or UTC-12.  [...]

One isn't supposed to think "is the freeze on everywhere", just "is the
freeze on for me" and "is the freeze on for this particular contribution
(check the date header)".

Nico
--

  16. Re: Feature freeze

    Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> — 2025-04-08T16:45:57Z

    On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 12:29 PM Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote:
> The fact that there is this confusion is an indication that the AoE
> experiment is a failure. If it's not obvious, and people have to think
> about it, then it's not working. And I bet there is a huge number of
> people who have never even heard of it. Specify some time and data at
> UTC and everyone will understand.

+1.

-- 
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com

  17. Re: Feature freeze

    Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat.oss@gmail.com> — 2025-04-08T16:49:25Z

    On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 9:30 PM Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> wrote:
>
> On 08.04.25 16:59, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr  8, 2025 at 10:36:45AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> >> Since we recorded feature freeze as April 8, 2025 0:00 AoE (anywhere on
> >> Earth):
> >>
> >>      https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_18_Open_Items#Important_Dates
> >>      https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aoe
> >>
> >> and it is now 2:34 AM AoE, I guess we are now in feature freeze.
> >
> > Frankly, I think the name "anywhere on Earth" is confusing, since it
> > really is "everywhere on Earth":
> >
> >       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anywhere_on_Earth
> >
> >       Anywhere on Earth (AoE) is a calendar designation that indicates
> >       that a period expires when the date passes everywhere on Earth.
>
> Yes, that works intuitively when you specify that sometimes ends when a
> certain day ends, for example:
>
> "The feature development phase ends at the end of day of April 7, AoE."
>
> That means, everyone everywhere can just look up at their clock and see,
> it's still April 7, it's still going.  (Of course, others can then do
> the analysis and keep going until some time on April 8, but that would
> be sort of against the spirit.)
>
> If you use it as a time zone with a time of day, it doesn't make
> intuitive sense.

+1. I think the idea is too simple to be acceptable.

Any timezone based deadline might be seen as unfair to those for whom
that time falls in their respective nights. AoE removes that
unfairness.

-- 
Best Wishes,
Ashutosh Bapat

  18. Re: Feature freeze

    Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> — 2025-04-08T17:15:20Z

    Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat.oss@gmail.com> writes:
> Any timezone based deadline might be seen as unfair to those for whom
> that time falls in their respective nights. AoE removes that
> unfairness.

... only with an interpretation of AoE that is shared by nobody.
It's quite clear that everyone else on this thread reads the
deadline as being a specific instant.  I do not think that you'll
get buy-in on resolving the confusion this way, and even if you
do, the webpage wording needs to be changed to be something like
"midnight your local time".

There is nothing whatsoever that is helpful about referring to AoE,
and if anything, you just made it even clearer that nobody knows
what that means.

			regards, tom lane

  19. Re: Feature freeze

    Euler Taveira <euler@eulerto.com> — 2025-04-08T19:26:52Z

    On Tue, Apr 8, 2025, at 2:15 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> There is nothing whatsoever that is helpful about referring to AoE,
> and if anything, you just made it even clearer that nobody knows
> what that means.

Agreed. Maybe that is a good idea to put a countdown timer [1] in the website
([2] or a new page). Hence, in doubt, it is good resource to figure out if it is
end of road for that release.

[1] https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?iso=20260406T12&p0=3926&msg=Feature+freeze&font=cursive&csz=1
[2] https://www.postgresql.org/developer/roadmap/


--
Euler Taveira
EDB   https://www.enterprisedb.com/

  20. Re: Feature freeze

    David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com> — 2025-04-08T20:32:44Z

    On Wed, 9 Apr 2025 at 03:54, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
> We did have this discussion when AoE was chosen for PG 18 and the idea
> was that as long as it is before April 18 midnight wherever you are, it
> is not feature freeze yet.

I think it maybe once made sense for the moment to stop accepting new
patches into a commitfest so that nobody got upset from their patch
missing the cut-off because the CF was changed to in progress "too
early" as it was still $previous_month in their timezone. Holding that
moment back til it was the correct month in every timezone didn't stop
people who lived further East from reviewing patches and committing
things, so I think it was done to keep everyone happy.

Much less of these reasons are applicable for feature freeze.
Committers want to calculate the time in their timezone when the
freeze hits so they can plan and not commit anything beyond that.
That's generally easier to do from UTC as people are generally more
used to that. There's also the whole "which day does midnight fall on"
problem, which, for some reason, is ambiguous to some. That's why
governments and airline companies sometimes do 23:59 or 00:01.

For me, I'm exactly 24 hours ahead of AoE, so it should be an easy
calc, but I still have more confidence that I'm correct if I'm
calculating from UTC. So, +1 for UTC.

David

  21. Re: Feature freeze

    John Naylor <johncnaylorls@gmail.com> — 2025-04-09T06:56:35Z

    On Tue, Apr 8, 2025 at 10:13 PM Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> wrote:
>
> I find both of the above needlessly confusing when we instead could use UTC
> which is a more universally understood concept.

Indeed, that's what the "U" stands for, after all. :-)

-- 
John Naylor
Amazon Web Services