Olaf Meeuwissen via Dng said on Thu, 03 Aug 2023 21:13:09 +0900

>Lehel Bernadt via Dng <dng@???> writes:
>
>> - I have the experience of filing bug reports only for nothing to
>> happen afterwards.
>
>Not picking on you Lehel, but I've seen several posts recently voicing
>similar sentiments. I think it is not constructive.

I agree with Lehel. I adhere to the old saying that "bugtrackers are
where bugs go to die." You take a half hour learning the project's bug
tracker, because they're all different, and then you try to answer
must-answer questions that have no answers, and when you're done, you
never hear about it again.

Think of all the times you've posted a problem on the mailing list, and
after all too little discussion some helpful soul says "file a bug
report". So let me get this straight: You encounter the problem, you
analyze the problem, perhaps you even diagnose the root cause of the
problem. So you report it on the mailing list. Do they say "thank you?"
No, the put more work on you.

"Put it in the bugtracker." End of discussion. No more thinking as a
group. No more support. Here's your hat, what's your hurry? They might
as well say "don't bother us with this stuff." Meanwhile,
there's probably a list inhabitant who knows a user level fix or
workaround, but the discussion is cut off before he's aware that your
problem is something he's gotten past.

I was the originator and first maintainer of the VimOutliner project.
We didn't need no steenkin bugtracker. All problems were reported on
the mailing list. We either solved the user's problem on the user's
end, or fixed VimOutliner. If a problem persisted, more people reported
it and we prioritized it.

I know, I know, VimOutliner was a simple project that did one thing and
did it well, but [name of project] is very complex and it can't be done
that way! Evvvvverybody's project is just soooooo massive that a mere
mortal can't understand it, so toss the report on the pile.

>That said, I do admit to not filing bug reports out of sheer laziness
>myself (on occasion) :-(

I don't think it's laziness. I think you're making best use of your
time.

By the way, in 1996 I made a bug tracker that was pretty much
universal, and whose output was prose you could put in any
wordprocessing document or website. It had no "must fill" fields, so
you could leave out what wasn't relevant, and weren't required to pick
from four choices that didn't fit the situation. It's really not that
hard to do if make things easy for the human user instead of for your
database.

I agree with Lehel.


SteveT

Steve Litt
Autumn 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm