Bug maintenance

[Angelo Locritani]

This is not a proper bug and I'm unsure if keeping it as a bug or converting to a blueprint.

The idea is quite simple:
we have several bugs that are in "new" state without a milestone set.
The same is true for bugs in "confirmed" state etc.

My proposal is to start reviewing those bugs and checking if they are fixed or can be discussed etc.

I'll start as soon as possible to review some of those bugs, in order to keep the bugtracker clean.
In this way would be easier for a new contributor to find some small things to fix or for experienced coder to focus on some unsolved bugs.

What do you think?

[SirVer (sirver)]

That would be actually great. In fact, we should never have a 'new' bug in tracker. But keeping the bug tracker clean is quite a major undertaking. Absolutely no reason to ask for permission: just go ahead! 5 bugs a day :)

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

I'm really happy more people want to deal with the bugs. Some thoughts:
I agree new bugs should be dealt with (hopefully ending up as confirmed). However, I'm not sure whether all bugs should be targetted to a milestone. My interpretation is that we can target issues which are deemed important enough that they should be fixed in the next release (or if we really want someone to take a look at it this release cycle). The rest of the bugs are implicitly targetted for later, and I fear targetting each bug towards a milestone will either add a lot of bugs to the next build which no one will look into or create more confusion. (Disclaimer: if I completely misunderstand or you have a better idea, please elaborate)

Fwiw, I've looked through the list of open bugs from time to time, and I'm fairly sure none of them have been fixed in the meantime and can be closed.

My prefered list of targets would be:
1. Confirm or otherwise deal with new bugs to reduce the amount of them.
2. Look through the list of open bugs, see whether you are able to add suggestions/comments/tags and/or if you consider them important, target them for build18.
3. Set importance to all bugs which have undecided importance.

>In this way would be easier for a new contributor to find some small things to fix or for experienced coder to focus on some unsolved bugs.
I think it is important to push that when bugs are marked triaged, the discussion should be finished and a developer should be able to start writing code immediately after reading through the report. I have also considered whether we want to mark bugs with a tag like "low-hanging-fruit" to signal what should be small, straight-forward tasks suited for new developers. On the other hand, I am not certain whether this is needed as most newcomers I have seen has simply picked a bug or just submitted a patch.

Finally, I'd like to point you or anyone else who wants to help out with the bug tracker to this page in the wiki: http://wl.widelands.org/wiki/TriagingBugs/. I wrote that a while back to encourage others to help out triaging bugs, and write down some guidelines. While a lot is missing, it should cover basic stuff.

[Angelo Locritani (alocritani)]

what do you think about milestones? should every bug have a milestone set?

2012/4/27 SirVer <email address hidden>

> That would be actually great. In fact, we should never have a 'new' bug
> in tracker. But keeping the bug tracker clean is quite a major
> undertaking. Absolutely no reason to ask for permission: just go ahead!
> 5 bugs a day :)
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/989913
>
> Title:
> Bug maintenance
>
> Status in Widelands:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> This is not a proper bug and I'm unsure if keeping it as a bug or
> converting to a blueprint.
>
> The idea is quite simple:
> we have several bugs that are in "new" state without a milestone set.
> The same is true for bugs in "confirmed" state etc.
>
> My proposal is to start reviewing those bugs and checking if they are
> fixed or can be discussed etc.
>
> I'll start as soon as possible to review some of those bugs, in order to
> keep the bugtracker clean.
> In this way would be easier for a new contributor to find some small
> things to fix or for experienced coder to focus on some unsolved bugs.
>
> What do you think?
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands/+bug/989913/+subscriptions
>

[Angelo Locritani (alocritani)]

ignore my previous comment: i've missed hjd's comment

[SirVer (sirver)]

I agree with hjd in all points! I also like the idea of lowhangingfruit tag! And I'd suggest closing this bug report down and take this discussion to the forums and the wiki. I feel every bug report should have a definite solution - must be closable. This here is an ongoing maintenance task. Happy play day!

[Angelo Locritani (alocritani)]

I've created a page on the wiki in order to keep track of the ongoing work about this topic

http://wl.widelands.org/wiki/BugTrackerMaintenance/

[Angelo Locritani (alocritani)]

closing this bug as invalid because not a proper bug, and discussion moved to wiki

[SirVer (sirver)]

I do not think that every bug needs a ms btw. Targeting is for annoying things and things which we really, really want to have done soon. But I think we have used ms pretty well in the past.

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

I'm still not sure if I've understood the purpose of the wikipage. Currently it lists some of the "new" bugs, thus partially duplicating the list of new bugs in Launchpad. (See the box of links on the right hand side on the bug page. The search also makes it easy to find confirmed/triaged bugs when deciding which issues should be targetted towards milestone.) I also find it more likely that someone will look at the list of new bugs offered by Launchpad, than find the one in the wiki.

I did go back and improved the description of bug 756433, but in general I think it would often be more useful to ask for clarification or extra information in the bug report in question. Alternatively, it is possible to stop by the IRC channel and ask what others think or whether they have been able to reproduce a specific bug.

I'm not saying it's wrong to have a wikipage, I just don't see what it offers which Launchpad doesn't at the moment. Would be nice if you could elaborate a bit. :)

[Angelo Locritani (alocritani)]

Hi Hans,
probably you're right, the best solution is to ask inside the bug itself; I
don't know why I've not thought about that before.
So maybe we can remove that wiki page and use Launchpad for that.

2012/6/23 Hans Joachim Desserud <email address hidden>

> I'm still not sure if I've understood the purpose of the wikipage.
> Currently it lists some of the "new" bugs, thus partially duplicating
> the list of new bugs in Launchpad. (See the box of links on the right
> hand side on the bug page. The search also makes it easy to find
> confirmed/triaged bugs when deciding which issues should be targetted
> towards milestone.) I also find it more likely that someone will look at
> the list of new bugs offered by Launchpad, than find the one in the
> wiki.
>
> I did go back and improved the description of bug 756433, but in general
> I think it would often be more useful to ask for clarification or extra
> information in the bug report in question. Alternatively, it is possible
> to stop by the IRC channel and ask what others think or whether they
> have been able to reproduce a specific bug.
>
> I'm not saying it's wrong to have a wikipage, I just don't see what it
> offers which Launchpad doesn't at the moment. Would be nice if you could
> elaborate a bit. :)
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/989913
>
> Title:
> Bug maintenance
>
> Status in Widelands:
> Invalid
>
> Bug description:
> This is not a proper bug and I'm unsure if keeping it as a bug or
> converting to a blueprint.
>
> The idea is quite simple:
> we have several bugs that are in "new" state without a milestone set.
> The same is true for bugs in "confirmed" state etc.
>
> My proposal is to start reviewing those bugs and checking if they are
> fixed or can be discussed etc.
>
> I'll start as soon as possible to review some of those bugs, in order to
> keep the bugtracker clean.
> In this way would be easier for a new contributor to find some small
> things to fix or for experienced coder to focus on some unsolved bugs.
>
> What do you think?
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/widelands/+bug/989913/+subscriptions
>