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

Tim Golden mail at timgolden.me.uk
Thu Sep 23 11:00:26 CEST 2010

On 23/09/2010 09:46, Georg Brandl wrote:

Am 23.09.2010 09:18, schrieb "Martin v. Löwis":

I personally think that the tracker fields and how they should be set is of minor importance. If there is a bug in Python, the most useful contribution is to submit a fix (or provide a rationale why this is not a bug). Asking every now and then "is this still an issue", or setting the version number, doesn't really advance the issue. It does however attract attention from developers who either weren't around when the original issue was submitted, or didn't feel competent enough to fix it then. It is also helpful to try reproducing the bug with a current version, in case the issue has been fixed already -- whether because of a duplicate bug report or by "chance".

I think my experience is that of several others. The work done by Mark and other tracker-trawlers has been useful: to dust off issues, attempt to assess their current validity, add suitable people to nosy lists, and where possible to try to reproduce or to encourage an OP to provide patches or other useful input.

I've addressed, closed, or at least taken note of several issues in this way which I might not otherwise have done.

The two less useful overspills of this generally useful activity have been: simple noise of the "Is anyone interested in this?" variety -- although even that might be useful, as Georg says, in highlighting older issues to newer developers; and the over-eager closure of calls on the basis of lack of response, and it seems to be an excess of this last which has brought the matter to a head.

Let me ask a question which I don't think has been asked in this thread: are there guidelines for tracker-trawlers? I'm never sure where to look for this kind of thing myself. If there's nothing, I'm happy to pen a dos-and-donts (which I might do anyway, simply as a blog entry...)

TJG

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