[Python-Dev] memory leaks in 2.2 (original) (raw)

Tim Peters tim.one@home.com
Sun, 9 Dec 2001 22:44:31 -0500

[Tim]

If any language I worked on previously had a few hundred open bug reports (not counting feature requests), we would have shut the group down and pursued a new implementation.

[Guido]

It depends on what the bugs are.

Actually, it would not have: a backlog of that many bugs (regardless of nature) would mean they'd never get fixed -- it's hopeless. Time then to cut losses. The compilers I worked on previously sold multi-million dollar machines, though, and had to work only with our own OS(es) and libraries. Python's life is more complicated than that -- and Python doesn't have a few hundred open bugs anyway (there are only 183 right now ). The Python bug base also has gripes about everything from docs to python-mode.el in it.

Many bugs in our tracker are intractable because we don't have the platform where it occurs or the user didn't supply enough information to reproduce it.

Those should be closed after a reasonable time: nobody is going to work on them. OTOH, I don't think there are many open bugs of this ilk (I routinely close such after a month, with "closed for lack of requested followup" -- and nobody has complained about that).

I imagine the GCC bugs are much of the same, just more (because GCC is more complex and wider used than Python -- most GCC users are even more clueless about GCC's implementation than Python users are about Python's implementation).

My only interaction with the gcc bug base was helping to whittle down oodles of bad codegen cases on new ports. I have no idea what else may be in there.

I try to close bugs from clueless users if there's no response to a request for more info, but often something that might be a bug but isn't easily reproduced stays open for many many months.

I don't think there are many open bugs of that ilk either.

So I'm not sure that it's realistic to keep all bugs on a page.

We were close once. Now the open patches don't even fit on a page.

I did my part against bugs without someone to ask for more info by forbidding anonymous bugs, recently.

Appreciated, but those were the easiest to close <0.9 wink>.

the-things-that-get-done-are-the-things-that-get-worked-on-ly y'rs - tim