Re: [Nautilus-list] Re: [Nautilus-test] Enabling "QA Contact"/"Verifier" in Bugzilla. Thoughts?

[will lashell net]

I think this is a great idea, because it gives the engineers an easy way
to check on fixes, and to get some feedback.

However, here are a couple of issues that exist currently
that would prevent this from happening easily right now.

The bonobo breakage that happened with this latest merge is
widespread enough, and frequent enough that its hard to even
get to one thing to test it without some other glaring bug
rearing its ugly head. For instance i just had nautilus crash
when I was changing a directory. And menu's are broken, etc etc.

This makes it hard to test many different features and opportunities
to crash nautilus. Now, I love wrecking nautilus as much as the next
guy, but I wouldn't feel right at this point only feeling truely obligated
to a certain feature set, or even putting extra emphasis when this is
happening.

I realize this is only temporary as John, Darin, Maciej etc all beat the
crap out bonoboish bugs and make nautilus as stable (relative) as it was
before the merge.

If we do decide to implement this structure eli, it would be really valuable
I think to have weekly(?) status reports from the testers responsible for
a component or feature set, that gets posted to nautilus-test. The reasoning
behind this is that if I'm testing a lot on my component, I would still like
to see how things are going etc. 

One side benefit that having noted testers being responsible for a component
would be that testing contributors have someone they -know- will be able to
check and try to verify the reproducibility of a bug with them, or maybe answer
questions etc.


This being said, I would love to feel "responsible" for the testing of a
component, but I'm having a hard time picking one? *grin* Any ideas for
that?

Will


On Fri, Oct 13, 2000 at 10:39:34AM -0700 or thereabouts, John Sullivan wrote:
> Hi Eli,
> 
> Your reasoning seems sound to me. I particularly like the fact that you
> mentioned both pros and cons, enabling the reader to make an informed
> opinion. The main reason we didn't turn it on originally was just because we
> didn't know how we would use it. I don't have any objections to turning it
> on now that we have QA people who can gain benefit from it.
> 
> John
> 
> on 10/13/00 9:21 AM, Eli Goldberg at eli eazel com wrote:
> 
> > Hi!
> > 
> > Unlike most Bugzilla installations that I've seen, Nautilus hasn't
> > used the "QA Contact" field. Originally, this was because until 8 weeks
> > ago, there weren't any QA contacts on the project. ;)
> > 
> > The "QA Contact" field is a person who owns the testing (or
> > sometimes, just the bug-handling) of a particular feature, just as an
> > engineer owns the coding of the feature. So, a QA contact would be
> > responsible for verifying bugs in their component, as well as helping
> > the developer, such as with bug reproduction.
> > 
> > Now, there are two people testing services (Beraj & Albert), along
> > with Josh Barrow (Search & builds), myself, Will (a bit of everything
> > ;), and a lot of other people testing the client whose names are eluding
> > 
> > me, along with Victor (who does a bit of testing of everything.)
> > 
> > 
> > I'd like to suggest that we enable the QA Contact/Verifier field on
> > the following basis:
> > 
> > * It's currently difficult for people to keep up with bugs in the
> > components in which they specialize, since bugs are often reported
> > without their knowing.
> > 
> > * Sometimes, engineers need help on a bug, and testers don't know
> > about it, since we're not automatically CC'd.
> > 
> > * It provides an entry point for people interested in testing to
> > plant a stake in Nautilus and get have personal ownership and
> > responsibility for a feature area.
> > 
> > e.g. after Joe Tester is involved for a few weeks and decides he's
> > having fun and would like to proceed beyond playing with Nautilus and
> > verifying occasional bugs, he could take over de facto ownership of a
> > feature or two he wished to test.
> > 
> > 
> > Reasons why this might not be such a good idea to do yet:
> > 
> > * One can just as easily keep up with new bugs in particular
> > components by using queries. We don't need an extra form field for that.
> > 
> > * If an engineer really needs help, they know to CC: a tester.
> > 
> > * There's still only one full-time tester on Nautilus. Most people
> > interested in testing Nautilus are still getting their feet wet, and
> > trying to build the darned thing, let alone actually work with it. ;)
> > Perhaps we should wait another month or two?
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Eli
> > 

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