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On Friday 16 February 2007, Bo Ørsted Andresen wrote: |
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> On Friday 16 February 2007 09:37:00 Alan McKinnon wrote: |
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> > There's an upside as well though. If many people keep reporting the |
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> > same bug in different ways, it tells themaintainer that the bug is |
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> > higher priority. If a bug is reported only once, and everyone else |
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> > that runs into it sees this bug report, and doesn't report their |
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> > experience, then the maintainer doesn't know about these users. So |
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> > he/she might consider the bug to be less important, and that would |
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> > be wrong. |
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> |
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> I strongly disagree with this (or at least how this sounds to me). |
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> Dupes are a necessary evil because we can't all be perfect at |
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> searching bugzilla but considering them to be good just doesn't make |
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> sense in my head. |
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Perhaps I should elaborate a little, my first post didn't make the |
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entire thing clear. |
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I'm not saying dupes are good, I'm saying that dupes are a fact of life |
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and users enter them. They are annoying to be sure, but we can make a |
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choice: |
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a. discard them out of hand and get all upset, or |
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b. note them, be aware that more than one user ran into the bug, see if |
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there's useful info in the dupe report, mark it as a dupe and get back |
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to work. |
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These take up about the same amount of time and a) is completely |
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negative while b) first extracts any information that is to be had. |
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Personally, I prefer b) as it's a nicer attitude. |
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> Everytime the subject of making it possible to vote on bugs has come |
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> up the counter argument has been that the list of CC'ed people |
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> already serves that role just as well but without giving the false |
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> impression that enough votes will get it fixed. |
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> |
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> If you want to make it known that you care about any given bug just |
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> CC yourself on the bug. I want to make it very clear that |
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> purposefully filing dupes to draw attention to an annoying bug is |
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> *only* wasting bug wranglers (yep, not the maintainers (and yep, that |
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> means jakubs) ;) time just like producing "I confirm this is a bug" |
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> comments as the 10th user after it's been acknowledged is only |
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> useless bugspam... (I'm sure you didn't mean to do that either but |
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> still..). |
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The first "Me too!" probably happened when the second user switched on |
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the first computer and spoke to the first user. They happen, and when |
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users out there in the wild go to bgo and find a bug report relevant to |
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them, they are gonna find a way to enter a Me Too! |
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Why? Because they went to bgo to find information, found it, and now |
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they want to communicate. The user doesn't have a clue what's going on |
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around the dev or any other user, he only sees his own bug and sees |
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that there are nice people at gentoo.org who will help him out, and |
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that there are other people just like him. And he will communicate |
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that. It's all perfectly natural and quite unstoppable. |
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If this causes the devs to be buried alive under sheer quantities of |
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data, then it's time to change the process, without making it |
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impossible for users to communicate that they too ran into a certain |
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bug |
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> What will get any given bug fixed is for someone (who doesn't have to |
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> be dev) to sit down and figure out a solution (and attach it on the |
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> bug)... An unlimited number of users saying it's a problem doesn't |
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> help at all if there's still noone able to fix it.. |
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Very true |
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> > Good maintainers consider users to be like customers and sometimes |
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> > they do get annoyed with many dup bugs. |
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> |
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> Can't really agree with this. They aren't paid so most of the best |
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> devs do it solely for their own sake (and because they find it |
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> interesting). Also good maintainers fix bugs even if only one user |
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> experience it if it's a bug and they are able to fix it. Quality > |
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> quantity. |
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The comparison is that customers are important and worth listening to. |
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One amazing thing about www.gentoo.org is that over and over again I see |
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statements like "we should do X because the users want it" or "Y is |
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causing problems for users". I can't ever remember seeing a dev say |
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things like "We should do Z because I want Z". |
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That's really cool, I take it to mean that the dude maintaining an arb |
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ebuild does it partly to help make *my* life easier, and he thinks I am |
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important to him - just like paying customers are important to |
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businesses |
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alan |
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-- |
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Optimists say the glass is half full, |
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Pessimists say the glass is half empty, |
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Developers say wtf is the glass twice as big as it needs to be? |
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|
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Alan McKinnon |
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alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za |
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+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five |
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-- |
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