Re: Introduction and some comments ;-)

[Peter T Mount <peter@retep.org.uk>]

At 17:42 30/01/2002 -0600, Tom Droege wrote:
>Mark;l and all,
>
>As you can see from the other posts, I do not try to run tass this 
>way.  For a while, we had someone in the group who liked to make project 
>plan diagrams for the software.  I think there is a tech note on the subject.
>
>I do not try to *run* tass in any way.  I do try to lead.  That is a lot 
>different from directing tass.  But note that tass has no rules.  If you 
>would like to organize a collaborative plan, then you are free to do 
>so.  Possibly you could put together a team that would work.  You could 
>then be "boss" and direct that group if that pleased you.
>
>In general, I support anyone trying to do anything that is related to an 
>all sky survey.  I think the only thing I would fight is if someone came 
>along that wanted to have membership rules and regulations and meetings 
>and such as do other professional organizations.  You are member of tass 
>if you want to be.  There are no other rules.

This actually goes both ways. For PostgreSQL, the problem with tables 
larger than 2Gb was found and fixed because of TASS. It was about 2 years 
ago when I did some tests (as I had enough spare space to try), and found 
that the original code failed when the table reached exactly 2Gb. The 
original developers knew that file systems could handle only 2Gb (this was 
back in 1986ish), and had put in the ability to split the file at 2Gb but 
it was untested as 2Gb disks were not available back then.

The fix was simple, split at 1Gb instead, but since then that area has 
become more important as disk sizes have increased (I've seen 120Gb IDE 
drives on sale here for about £200) and a lot of people now have 20Gb/50Gb 
databases. In PostgreSQL, the problem has had a lot more work done in this 
area.

The point I'm trying to say here, is that not only could you help TASS, but 
there can & has been times where a problem for TASS could help solve 
problems in other projects as well. Both then benefit.

Peter