On Tue, 2004-03-09 at 11:15, Alexander Larsson wrote: > On Fri, 2004-03-05 at 16:28, Leonard den Ottolander wrote: > > > > I don't remember the last time I > > > actually had time to do a bugzilla query. > > > > Here. That's what I mean. Shouldn't developers at least have some time > > to spend on hunting bugs? A few hours a week? There have been occasions > > where I reported serious issues (being crashes in important parts of > > prominent software), and still the developer did not approach me for > > more details but after some serious nagging on my part. Do I really have > > to chase after developers on the mailing lists or in IRC if I already > > filed in bugzilla? Hey I don't mind, but you should know that this is a > > two way street. > > If I spend a few hours more on quering bugzilla bugs, that just means I > won't be reading incomming bugzilla emails for those few hours, and > incoming bugs will be ignored. If someone bugs me on irc about their > favourite bug then someone elses favourite bug gets ignored. > > Of course we have to make sure we spend our time wisely on bugfixes, > feature work, communications and everything, but at the end of the day, > if there isn't enough hours to get things done, they won't get done. > Good scheduling only gets you so far. > > > > One could say its the fault of management that there aren't 10x as many > > > engineers as we have now so we'd have time to fix more things. > > > > Twice as many would be enough. But seriously, if you have just a few > > people who can spend their time on hunting bugs that would already make > > a *big* difference. > > Yes. So, please, people on this list, fix a bug today! > > > > However, I very rarely see anyone fixing any of the non-trivial bugs I > > > own (and I own thousands of them, so I wouldn't mind some help). > > > > Part of this problem is communication. You can't expect (most) outsiders > > to fix difficult bugs in software that you are supposed to be the > > authority on. This means that if you want others to make non trivial > > fixes you will have to communicate some of your knowledge of the > > internals of "your" software, or wait for someone to come around that > > already has that knowledge. > > > > Another approach would be to set up work groups of a few people > > attending to a certain package. But that again is a management issue. > > And it would still require the developer to have/take time to > > communicate with these people. > > I agree with what you say, and communication is important. But you make > this sound so easy, we (i.e. the developers) just have to communicate > more. > > It seems its always the fault of the developer when something isn't > ideal. The developer should just write more devel docs, should just > write more docs, should just fix more bugs, should just communicate with > the community more, should just add that new important feature. > > Why isn't it never the fault of the person who wants to fix a difficult > bug that he didn't spend enough time trying to understand the code, > instead of the developer not spending enough time writing docs for > something that probably only that person needs. > > I'm not saying developers should never write docs, never fix bugs, never > communicate or whatever. What i'm saying is that writing good software > needs a lot of work, in many areas, and developers do all sorts of > things. Hopefully developers have a good view of the "global" state of > their project and can spend their time where it gives best results. > Whenever you're on the side that "complains" about the developer not > having done something you only focus on that specific thing, and it > seems ridiculous that the developer hasn't done this simple small thing. > However, you need to step back and think about all the enourmous amount > of things the developer has done instead, and that perhaps he even made > the right prioritization when he chose to not spend his time on your > issue. > > > > I may be a pessimist, but I doubt anyone would read any such docs. > > > > Some people read docs. Then a lot don't. But you can't expect people to > > read information that has not been written down... > > > > All in all I am not arguing that all progress on developing new software > > features should be stopped. But I do think bug hunting and squashing is > > an essential part of QA. Developers should have/take (more) time to > > either do it themselves or help out others who are willing. > > We do already spend time fixing bugs, and it is an essential part of QA. > However you seem to want us to spend more time on that than we currently > do. The hard question is then: What would you want us then to not do > instead? > > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > Alexander Larsson Red Hat, Inc > alexl@xxxxxxxxxx alla@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx > He's a suicidal voodoo matador who hangs with the wrong crowd. She's a > transdimensional gypsy lawyer with someone else's memories. They fight crime! >
