[Python-Dev] Buglist (original) (raw)

Jeremy Hylton jeremy@beopen.com
Thu, 3 Aug 2000 12:26:51 -0400 (EDT)

"TW" == Thomas Wouters <thomas@xs4all.net> writes:

It is good to assign bugs to people -- probably even if we end up playing hot potato for a while. If a bug is assigned to you, you should either try to fix it, diagnose it, or assign it to someone else.

TW> Hm, I did that for a few, but it's not very easy to find the TW> right person, in some cases. Bugs in the 're' module, should TW> they go to amk or to /F ? XML stuff, should it go to Paul TW> Prescod or some of the other people who seem to be doing TW> something with XML ? A 'capabilities' list would be pretty neat!

I had the same problem when I was trying to assign bugs. It is seldom clear who should be assigned a bug. I have used two rules when processing open, uncategorized bugs:

* If you have a reasonable guess about who to assign a bug to,
it's better to assign to the wrong person than not to assign at
all.  If the wrong person gets it, she can assign it to someone
else. 

* If you don't know who to assign it to, at least give it a
category.  That allows someone who feels expert in a category
(e.g. a Tkinter guru), to easily scan all the unassigned bugs in
that category.

You seem to be arguing that the sheer number of bug reports bothers you and that it's better to have a shorter list of bugs regardless of whether they're actually fixed. Come on! I don't want to overlook any bugs.

TW> No, that wasn't what I meant :P

Sorry. I didn't believe you really meant that, but you came off sounding like you did :-).

TW> Having 9 out of 10 bugs waiting in the buglist without anyone TW> looking at them because it's too vague and everyone thinks not TW> 'their' field of expertise and expect someone else to look at TW> them, defeats the purpose of the buglist.

I still don't agree here. If you're not fairly certain about the bug, keep it on the list. I don't see too much harm in having vague, open bugs on the list.

TW> But closing those TW> bugreports, explaining the problem and even forwarding the TW> excerpt to the submittor might result in the original TW> submittor, who still has the bug, to forget about explaining it TW> further, whereas a couple of hours trying to duplicate the bug TW> might locate it. I personally just wouldn't want to be the one TW> doing all that effort ;)

You can send mail to the person who reported the bug and ask her for more details without closing it.

TW> Just-trying-to-help-you-do-your-job---not-taking-it-over-ly

And I appreciate the help!! The more bugs we have categorized or assigned, the better.

of-course-actually-fixing-real-bugs-is-good-too-ly y'rs, Jeremy