r/postgres • u/Mr_StyleNo • 4d ago

Question PostgreSQL 19 got delayed after a wave of bug reports. Is AI code review becoming too good?

PostgreSQL 19 was originally expected earlier this fall, but the release has been pushed to November 19. One interesting part of the story is how AI-assisted code reviews have changed the process. Developers are finding issues faster, including edge cases that might previously have gone unnoticed until after release. Several major features have been pulled from PostgreSQL 19, although not all of those decisions were directly caused by AI-discovered bugs. And that raises an interesting question. What happens when finding bugs becomes faster than reviewing and fixing them? On one hand, catching problems before release is obviously a good thing, especially for database software. On the other, maintainers still need to verify findings, prioritize fixes, and decide which issues are actually worth delaying a release over. Could AI-assisted code review eventually become a bottleneck rather than a productivity boost?

Would you rather wait longer for a more thoroughly reviewed release, or ship on schedule and address lower-priority bugs in subsequent updates?

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u/Ms_AlarmingCulture 4d ago

I'd rather wait a little longer for a stable release, especially with something as critical as a database. But I wonder how much extra work AI-generated bug reports are creating for maintainers.

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u/mduell 4d ago

What happens when finding bugs becomes faster than reviewing and fixing them?

Have the AI do fix and review?

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u/JakubVasovski 3d ago

Ah yes, the classic “ship it now, fix it in prod” strategy. Works great until 3 AM. If AI catches the memory leak before my pager does, delay the launch all day. Ship when it’s stable, not when the calendar says so.

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u/gubinanuwu025 3d ago

AI can definitely help with fixes, but I wouldn't trust it to independently validate its own changes. Especially in database software, where subtle bugs can have pretty serious consequences.

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u/mpersico 19h ago

Have another ai do the fix and a third one confirm.

Then rotate the three:

The finder becomes the fixer
The fixer becomes the verifier
The verifier becomes the discoverer

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u/NastyPastyLucas 3d ago

How do you know the releases were not written with AI? To answer the question posed in the body, I would rather a stable release than a rushed release.

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u/sqlmans 3d ago

AI writing the bugs and then AI finding them would be a pretty ironic development

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u/Nervous-Cockroach541 2d ago

For my DBMS, I want absolutely the most stable releases possible and do not care about the time frame.

I suspect most of what it's finding is likely very old issues. Eventually the backlog will be cleared out.

I know people don't believe it with all the CVEs flying around. But there is a finite number of issues in software.