OT to Brian regarding bugs (was "[xfce 4.2rc1] two "bugs"")

[Brian J. Tarricone]

On 11/24/04 11:48, Andrew Conkling wrote:
> 
> Hey Brian,
> Just for the record:
> So if we run into a problem, we should search the mailinglist and
> bugzilla and (if nothing is found) then report a bug on bugzilla?  I can
> see what you mean about one place being more efficient, but Xan is not
> the only one who thinks that reporting an invalid bug would be an
> annoyance to you devs. (I do too.)

yes, please, that's exactly what i'd like to see.  personally, i don't
care if there are a lot of INVALID bugs in bugzilla; overall, it's easier
to track them there than here.  my thinking is this:

* bug is reported on mailing list and later entered in bugzilla:
PROS:
- it's easier for others on the list to notice it and immediately give more
input {this is actually a really good pro}.
- doesn't clutter bugzilla with invalid bugs {personally i don't care about
this}
CONS:
- information continuity: some useful info may not make it from the mailing
list to bugzilla, and either a) it's more work to go and find it again, or
b) it gets overlooked and possibly makes fixing the bug harder
- duplication of effort: you type up a description to the mailing list,
and then later have to do a cut-and-paste job to get it into bugzilla, or,
worse, end up rewriting it to make it more "bug report appropriate".  the
dev in question will probably end up re-reading the entire bugzilla entry,
since they want to make sure no new info is in the bug report above and
beyond what was in the ML post.

* bug is reported directly to the bug tracker:
PROS:
- easier to triage and decide on priorities and such when it's listed right
there next to other active bugs
- all info provided about the bug is immediately there, without the need
to look through other sources.  it's typed once and only needs to be read
once.
- all info is always in the same place: you don't need to search through an
entire email thread for relevant information as it's all there on one
web page.
- duplicate or invalid reports are in the bug tracker and are searchable,
so other users with similar problems can search bugzilla and learn this,
rather than emailing the ML as if it was a new issue.
CONS:
- it puts a bit of the burden on the user to search through bugzilla for
their bug, rather than just chiming in on a possibly already-existing email
thread.
- a flat non-threaded view isn't the best method of discussion.  on the
other hand, bug reports tend to not have a non-linear thread, and bugzilla's
new reply/quoting feature makes things a bit more convenient.

this is just a quick sampling of my thoughts on this; i could probably come
up with more pros and cons for both cases if i wanted to spend more time.

> In the meantime, I've signed up to xfce-bugs to help y'all kill some
> bugs, since 4.2 is coming.... >:-D

note that xfce-bugs only gets emails about bugs that aren't assigned to any
particular person.  for example, if someone files a bug against the
xfdesktop component, emails go to me and no one else.  the stuff that
goes to xfce-bugs are components that are more general in nature, or don't
really have a well-defined maintainer.  bugzilla does have a "watch" feature,
so you can get email forwarded to you automatically for particular people.
of course, there's still the option of adding yourself to the CC of a
particular bug if you find it interesting.

also, check out the pre-fab queries i whipped up at
http://bugzilla.xfce.org/common_queries.cgi
i've found them pretty useful, and if anyone comes up with some other
queries they find they're doing often, let me know and i'll add it to the
page.

	-brian