Message-Id: <9301040400.AA16828@postgres.Berkeley.EDU>
From: glass@postgres.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Re: Querys on ongoing projects...
To: postgres@postgres.berkeley.edu
Sender: pg_adm@postgres.berkeley.edu
In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 03 Jan 93 18:11:07 PST.
             <9301040211.AA16648@postgres.Berkeley.EDU> 
Date: Sun, 03 Jan 93 20:01:18 -0800
From: glass@postgres.Berkeley.EDU

> [As I am a newbie on this list, and as these are likely faqs, if you
> feel like spewing bile, please do so via mail direct to me so the rest
> of the world can live in peace...]
> 
> I desire to correspond with people who are involved in any of the
> following projects WRT postgres 4.0.1:
> 
> 1) Ansification of the source.
> 

It is on the aggenda for the coming release.  We are trying to do this
in a way that will allow compilation by non-ANSI compilers, and let us
use the new ANSI features to best advantage.

> 2) Posixification of the source.
>
> 3) Other portability changes to the source, such as:
>   a) Removing yaccocentric code to allow use of other (e.g posix or
> bison) compiler-compilers.
>   b) Removing flexocentric code for similar reasons.
>   c) Un-necessary bsdisms or sunisms.
> 

These are continuing trends in our code, particularly as we change our
'supported' platforms away from machines like the sequent, and towards
the HP snakes, Alphas, and i386BSD.

> 4) Modifying the distribution to use a more comprehensive
> multi-platform building technology (say Imake).
> 

done.  The next release will use the new berkeley make which will be
included in the distribution.

> 6) Is the postgres group likely to fix unportabilities if they are
> reported as bugs?
> 

We'll certainly consider it.  We are already considering some of the
major unportabilities in postgres including assumptions we made about
the size of longs, old K&R-isms, etc.

later,
Adam Glass
postgres research group