www.digitalmars.com         C & C++   DMDScript  

digitalmars.D.learn - Issues

reply Andre <test test.te> writes:
I was wondering how people in this D community think about the 
number of issues with NEW status...

It could scare individuals/organizations to start with D, when 
they get the impression that there are a large and growing number 
of issues that are open (for years). I know this is not a fair 
interpretation of what's going on, but it's a conclusion one 
could make.

- Is there a preferred way to clean things up? A resolution 
status? A maximum time?

- Or perhaps the bugtracker (https://dlang.org/bugstats.php) 
needs to be adjusted for irrelevant things..

- Or is it a non-issue and should we just ignore the tail of the 
list?
Feb 22 2016
next sibling parent Mathias Lang <pro.mathias.lang gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 22 February 2016 at 22:56:26 UTC, Andre wrote:

 I was wondering how people in this D community think about the 
 number of issues with NEW status...


NEW just means 'not resolved'. Things are rarely assigned, and 
usually go straight
from 'NEW' to 'RESOLVED'. An intermediate status, when a PR is 
open, could be assigned by the dlang bot, but I don't know if 
that would bring much.


 It could scare individuals/organizations to start with D, when 
 they get the impression that there are a large and growing 
 number of issues that are open (for years). I know this is not 
 a fair interpretation of what's going on, but it's a conclusion 
 one could make.


And that's a fair point. Though the number of resolved issues 
grows much faster than the new ones.


 - Is there a preferred way to clean things up? A resolution 
 status? A maximum time?


It's a case by case basis really. Whenever you hit a new issue, 
search the bug tracker before opening a new one. You might find 
two or more issues related to the same bug. In this case, I 
recommend closing (as DUPLICATE) the one which is either the 
least documented, or the newer one.
Bear in minds issues are not created equals, as some are very 
broad / require significant design adjustment (e.g. 'object is 
not const correct'), while some are trivial (some broken links in 
the doc for example).

Some are also just enhancement request (valid or not), and it 
might be interesting to move them somewhere else (DIP most 
likely).

If you want to help triaging, I suggest going through the bug 
reports and trying to reproduce with the latest release (skipping 
the D1 only bugs). It's quite likely you'll find a decent amount 
of bugs that were already fixed, but hasn't been marked as such. 
You can then try to link them to Github P.R. (if possible) and 
close them.
Feb 22 2016
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d-learn writes:
On Monday, February 22, 2016 22:56:26 Andre via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:

 I was wondering how people in this D community think about the
 number of issues with NEW status...

 It could scare individuals/organizations to start with D, when
 they get the impression that there are a large and growing number
 of issues that are open (for years). I know this is not a fair
 interpretation of what's going on, but it's a conclusion one
 could make.

 - Is there a preferred way to clean things up? A resolution
 status? A maximum time?

 - Or perhaps the bugtracker (https://dlang.org/bugstats.php)
 needs to be adjusted for irrelevant things..

 - Or is it a non-issue and should we just ignore the tail of the
 list?


Well, if you'll notice th list of resolved issues is going up way faster
than the list of new issues. So, while bugzilla likely could use some effort
on cleaning up bugs in it (which some people do do from time to time), that
chart really doesn't look bad.

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 22 2016
parent reply Johan Engelen <j j.nl> writes:
On Monday, 22 February 2016 at 23:21:28 UTC, Jonathan M Davis 
wrote:

 Well, if you'll notice th list of resolved issues is going up 
 way faster than the list of new issues.


<troll>
(To put some oil on the fire:)

But the number of new issues /is/ going up. I.e. the number of 
resolved issues is going way up, the number of new new issues is 
going way way up. That's how I read the graph.

(Please help to resolve issues, rather than spending time on the 
forum talking about it ;)
</troll>

:-)
Feb 23 2016
parent Andre <test test.te> writes:
On Tuesday, 23 February 2016 at 19:53:52 UTC, Johan Engelen wrote:

 On Monday, 22 February 2016 at 23:21:28 UTC, Jonathan M Davis 
 wrote:

 Well, if you'll notice th list of resolved issues is going up 
 way faster than the list of new issues.


 <troll>
 (To put some oil on the fire:)

 But the number of new issues /is/ going up. I.e. the number of 
 resolved issues is going way up, the number of new new issues 
 is going way way up. That's how I read the graph.

 (Please help to resolve issues, rather than spending time on 
 the forum talking about it ;)
 </troll>

 :-)


For me this was helpful to get an idea what's going on, how 
people work on/think about issues, priorities, etc.
So please consider this time a little investment to get a new 
member more involved.

I'm considering working on some easy issues first. I will ignore 
the enhancement requests from bearophile that have status new, no 
votes, no one in CC, no comments. There are more than 200 (!) of 
them. These issues could be valid/valuable but I just don't agree 
with this way of shouting requests and not following up on them. 
I'd rather help someone else first who is really interested in 
solving his own requests.
Feb 23 2016
prev sibling parent reply ag0aep6g <anonymous example.com> writes:
On 22.02.2016 23:56, Andre wrote:

 I was wondering how people in this D community think about the number of
 issues with NEW status...

 It could scare individuals/organizations to start with D, when they get
 the impression that there are a large and growing number of issues that
 are open (for years). I know this is not a fair interpretation of what's
 going on, but it's a conclusion one could make.


I guess my reopening of issue 4763 [1] got you here. Old issues may be 
embarrassing, but I believe closing them without proper resolution, just 
because they're old, is very bad practice.

Regarding old enhancement request that never got anywhere, it's 
certainly tempting to just throw them away, but I think it's a bad move 
when a single member of the community just closes issues that have been 
filed by someone else. That would make for bad weather in the community.

Instead, I suggest to engage in discussion with the proponent(s) of the 
request. Or implement the request and try to get it merged.


 - Is there a preferred way to clean things up?


Fix stuff :P


 A resolution status?


Not sure what kind of status you're looking for. There's WONTFIX, but 
you shouldn't apply it just because an issue is old. As far as I know, 
we don't use LATER and REMIND.


 A maximum time?


No.


 - Or perhaps the bugtracker (https://dlang.org/bugstats.php) needs to be
 adjusted for irrelevant things..


What do you mean by "irrelevant"? If you think an issue is irrelevant, 
please argue your point in the comments section of the issue.

Maybe all enhancement requests (that are not closely followed by an 
implementation) are "irrelevant"? I could understand that viewpoint, but 
that's not how we operate at the moment. If you want us to go in that 
direction, ask about it in the General group, and if there's consensus 
to do away with (long-lived) enhancement requests, mass-close them.

By the way, I don't like the bugstats.php page all that much. Some time 
ago I've played around with charts and put this together:

https://issues.dlang.org/chart.cgi?category=D&datefrom=&dateto=&label0=normal%20bugs&label1=enhancement%20requests&label2=major%20bugs&label3=minor%20bugs&label4=critical%20bugs&label5=blockers&label6=trivial%20bugs&label7=regressions&line0=101&line1=104&line2=100&line3=102&line4=99&line5=98&line6=103&line7=97&name=98&subcategory=data%20sets%20by%20severity&action=wrap&width=600&height=650

I think it's more interesting than the one on bugstats.php. But it 
doesn't go back as far - it only started counting when I created it. 
Then I gave up.


 - Or is it a non-issue and should we just ignore the tail of the list?


Not ignore it, work towards reducing it by actually resolving stuff.


[1] https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4763
Feb 22 2016
parent reply Andre <test test.te> writes:
On Tuesday, 23 February 2016 at 00:13:23 UTC, ag0aep6g wrote:

 On 22.02.2016 23:56, Andre wrote:

 I was wondering how people in this D community think about the 
 number of
 issues with NEW status...

 It could scare individuals/organizations to start with D, when 
 they get
 the impression that there are a large and growing number of 
 issues that
 are open (for years). I know this is not a fair interpretation 
 of what's
 going on, but it's a conclusion one could make.


 I guess my reopening of issue 4763 [1] got you here. Old issues 
 may be embarrassing, but I believe closing them without proper 
 resolution, just because they're old, is very bad practice.

 Regarding old enhancement request that never got anywhere, it's 
 certainly tempting to just throw them away, but I think it's a 
 bad move when a single member of the community just closes 
 issues that have been filed by someone else. That would make 
 for bad weather in the community.

 Instead, I suggest to engage in discussion with the 
 proponent(s) of the request. Or implement the request and try 
 to get it merged.


 - Is there a preferred way to clean things up?


 Fix stuff :P


 A resolution status?


 Not sure what kind of status you're looking for. There's 
 WONTFIX, but you shouldn't apply it just because an issue is 
 old. As far as I know, we don't use LATER and REMIND.


 A maximum time?


 No.


 - Or perhaps the bugtracker (https://dlang.org/bugstats.php) 
 needs to be
 adjusted for irrelevant things..


 What do you mean by "irrelevant"? If you think an issue is 
 irrelevant, please argue your point in the comments section of 
 the issue.

 Maybe all enhancement requests (that are not closely followed 
 by an implementation) are "irrelevant"? I could understand that 
 viewpoint, but that's not how we operate at the moment. If you 
 want us to go in that direction, ask about it in the General 
 group, and if there's consensus to do away with (long-lived) 
 enhancement requests, mass-close them.

 By the way, I don't like the bugstats.php page all that much. 
 Some time ago I've played around with charts and put this 
 together:

 https://issues.dlang.org/chart.cgi?category=D&datefrom=&dateto=&label0=normal%20bugs&label1=enhancement%20requests&label2=major%20bugs&label3=minor%20bugs&label4=critical%20bugs&label5=blockers&label6=trivial%20bugs&label7=regressions&line0=101&line1=104&line2=100&line3=102&line4=99&line5=98&line6=103&line7=97&name=98&subcategory=data%20sets%20by%20severity&action=wrap&width=600&height=650

 I think it's more interesting than the one on bugstats.php. But 
 it doesn't go back as far - it only started counting when I 
 created it. Then I gave up.


 - Or is it a non-issue and should we just ignore the tail of 
 the list?


 Not ignore it, work towards reducing it by actually resolving 
 stuff.


 [1] https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4763



get the impression this is an active, positive and thoughtful 
community. Compliments!

I think your 'definition' of irrelevant is getting us somewhere:
- enhancement requests
- that are not closely followed by an implementation
- with outdated information
- empty CC
- no votes
- no owner

I agree with your point that a single member should not close 
something just because it's old. On the other hand, the issuer 
also has a responsibility to track/coordinate/complete issues.


requests were fixed/solved and the 3rd was open for about 5 
years, without recent activity, no owner, empty CC and no votes.


 Instead, I suggest to engage in discussion with the 
 proponent(s) of the request.


Point taken, I could have asked the proponent.


Or implement the request and try to get it merged.


I agree with all people responding, resolving is the best way to 
go.

About the >bug<stats chart, I think it would be more meaningful 
if it only shows bugs. For marketing and to challenge everyone to 
keep it near zero.

Thanks for everyone's insights.
Feb 23 2016
parent "H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d-learn" <digitalmars-d-learn puremagic.com> writes:
On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 02:38:42PM +0000, Andre via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
[...]


 were fixed/solved and the 3rd was open for about 5 years, without
 recent activity, no owner, empty CC and no votes.


[...]

Sometimes people overlook certain issues for a long time, that's why
they have empty CC and no votes.  But they may be actual issues that
should be fixed.  When I have free time I like to browse old bugs to see
if there are any neglected bugs that ought to be fixed -- I've fixed a
few that had been otherwise overlooked for a long time.  If you like,
you could join me (and several others) who regularly trawl through old
bugs and find low-hanging fruit that can be easily fixed. ;-) Or, at the
very least, bring it to people's attention in the forum, say, if you
feel it's important -- it could be that people just overlooked the bug
and it's actually an important issue to fix.

Also, as somebody else has said, very few bugs actually get assigned;
most of the time people just work on them and submit PRs for them, and
they simply go from NEW to RESOLVED directly.  We've also tried to
promote the use of votes, but AFAICT that hasn't really caught on
either, so I wouldn't put too much weight on the fact that most bugs
have no votes.


T

-- 
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. --
Sammy
Feb 23 2016