Re: Bug reporting [Was: Promoting greater integration between testers!:)]

[Luis Villa <louie ximian com>]

On Mon, 2003-06-30 at 12:12, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Luis Villa">
> 
> > A wiser head than I points out that this is a really sad statement for me
> > to make. I agree. I hate to have to admit this, but currently bugsquad and
> > I just can't keep up on many key modules (like, say, nautilus.) If I could
> > spend all day (and all night) on bugsquad and b.g.o., I wouldn't be saying
> > this. But I can't so I must :/
> > 
> > I should also note that projects that feel a shortage of bug reports
> > should feel very comfortable doing this (Abi already does something like
> > this, for example.) I'm just saying it can't be the default in libgnomeui
> > for stable releases- apps must do it on a per-app level.  Currently the
> > core apps (which is what I have to think about) can't be defaulting to
> > this, at least not in stable releases.
> 
> I think that shifting to the Mozilla 'UNCONFIRMED' -> 'NEW' triage strategy
> (as suggested by James Henstridge a number of times) would help in this
> regard. It would make an 'introduction to triaging' so much easier, and
> hackers would not have to see all of the crazy mess that goes on underneath
> until the bug was flagged as 'NEW', signalling that they should care about
> it. This could help.

It would definitely help; I'd like to set it up when I can. But... it's
not a panacea. 

In a nutshell:
Pro: 
*reduces email load on maintainers (very, very good)

Con:
*Makes it that much more tempting/easy to ignore a large class of bug
email (pretty bad, not as bad as the pro is good.)

Neutral (virtually everything else):
*doesn't solve the 'not enough people reading new bugs' problem- still
same number of bugs
*doesn't help new people get involved any faster (possibly this is
worse, if the mails are just ignored)
*there was something else to go here, but I don't remember it

So, basically, the UNCONFIRMED thing solves one problem (an important
problem) but it doesn't solve a lot of the other challenges we face, so
it shouldn't be treated as a panacea. :)

Anyway, off to lunch- maybe I'll actually find time to do the
UNCONFIRMED magic after lunch, though I wouldn't necessarily hold my
breath :)

Luis