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David J. Hughes (bambi@Hughes.com.au)
Fri, 16 Apr 1999 09:22:24 +1000 (EST) 

Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 09:22:24 +1000 (EST)
From: "David J. Hughes" <bambi@Hughes.com.au>
Subject: Re: more wishes...
Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.990416085945.362M-100000@fawn.Hughes.com.au>

On Thu, 15 Apr 1999, James E. Harrell, Jr wrote:

> Seems that every day or so, people are asking to add feature x or y... What
> this comes down to, is that we really don't have much of an idea of the
> requirements tree Hughes is working with... every month or so for the last
> few months, a bug fix / requirements change / feature addition has been
> implemented and released. While this turn around is excellent, from the
> outside it seems a little haphazard...
>
> [ snip ]

James, I appreciate your concerns. Let me assure you that what you have
outlined is basically how we work. The "new features" added to the 2.0
code base over the last few months have been very simple additions (such
as query logging or being able to specify the DB_Dir etc) that have very
little impact on the core engine code. We do not make changes to the
server architecture during a release series.

Internally, we have our own "wish list" for, in this case, the 2.1 code.
That is the point of the research code branch. What we do is trial the
"wish" in the research code to see if (a) it works and (b) it has a major
impact on performance or memory use. From there, the good ideas are put
to one side, complete with heavily tested code, for later inclusion into a
production branch.

For 2.1 we will publish a feture spec once we have it nailed. I'm happy
to receive ideas from the list as these ideas are based on real
requirements. We can filter those ideas and incorporate those that fit.
These will be included into the formal feature spec for 2.1. There will
be a feature freeze but not till I've seen more comments from the list.

You may have noticed a much more formal release approach since we
"revamped" Hughes Tech about 6 months ago. That structure will become
even more formal as we move to 2.1. Monthly releases are a good idea for
bug fixes as any shorter period would be too short and any longer period
would be too long to work with a bug. In 2.1 there will be no features
introduced at all in mid-series.

I hope this removes any concerns about the development of mSQL. We hear
you and agree with you.

Bambi
...