Haas: Postgres 19 is late, and it's AI's fault
PostgreSQL developer Robert Haas writes about the struggles the project has encountered in putting together its next release.
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| Factor | Weight | Score | Contribution | Where it came from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corroboration | 0.35 | 0.39 | +0.135 30% | 1 independent org on the story. Tier-3 aggregators never corroborate — they can show something is circulating, never that it is true. |
| Source trustleads | 0.25 | 0.85 | +0.212 46% | LWN is the highest-trust source on this story. Trust is taken from the best source, not averaged. |
| Pickup rate | 0.20 | 0.00 | +0.000 0% | One counted organisation, so there is no spread to measure — nothing has picked this up to set a rate. |
| Freshness | 0.20 | 0.55 | +0.111 24% | Halves every 10 hours from the newest item on the story. This is the only factor that rewards a story for nothing more than being recent. |
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KittyTeggie · GPL · Wikimedia Commons · illustrativePostgreSQL 19 is delayed, but the project does not view the postponement as a serious concern. The hold-up stems from the team's commitment to quality rather than technical obstacles. The release schedule slip is modest relative to the project's overall timeline.
The delay reflects a broader challenge facing PostgreSQL development. Machine learning models have begun identifying bugs that human reviewers missed over decades. This capability creates uncertainty about how the project will manage quality assurance going forward while maintaining its pace of innovation.
PostgreSQL developers are actively working to address these emerging issues. The long-term implications of AI-assisted bug discovery remain unclear, though the immediate decision to delay the release prioritizes stability over speed.
What happened
PostgreSQL developer Robert Haas writes about the struggles the project has encountered in putting together its next release. In the end, I don't think that the delay in shipping PostgreSQL 19 is particularly concerning. It is not a long delay in the grand scheme of things, and it emerges directly from the project's concern for quality. The long-term picture is less clear and in some ways more troubling: given that we have forty years of bugs that humans were unable to find but LLMs are quite capable of discovering, how are we ever going to catch up, and how will PostgreSQL continue to innovate? What I do know is that I, and many others, are working really hard to figure it out.
How this story arrived
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- 01 Lwn first seen Haas: Postgres 19 is late, and it's AI's fault
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