Steve, If I had to guess, I think it's more likely that a person will submit a patch than try someone else's patch and report its effectiveness.
A great number of people use Struts, that's a given, but I think it's a much smaller percentage that use the nightly builds (mostly brave and/or trusting souls and those whose hands aren't tied by corporate standards or probably work alone or in a small team). An even smaller percentage use the nightly build by building it themselves. (Maybe some still remember the series of emails before, about the experience of other folks having difficulty setting up to build Struts.) From that group, I'm not sure a whole lot of them would try out a patch on a bug report that the committers aren't noticing. You'd have to find several people from that small group who are also affected enough by an issue/enhancement the patch addresses to be able to spend the time and apply, rebuild, and test, only to end up with a forked version which will be incompatible with the next nightly build/release. Although I can see this happening in an ideal scenario (poor guys with incompatible binaries, though), this just never struck me as realistic. With 262 tickets, or over two dozen with patches, to get "several people" reporting back on the same patch, enough to get the feedback that said patch is "probably good", seems unlikely. I can't recall several people reporting on the same patch so much that it prompted a committer to eventually review and commit it. I think the closest I've seen is add'l feedback to get a bug solved, or an enhancement added, maybe by messages to dev list or add'l votes on the bug report. There were a couple or more times I've seen someone else look at the submitted patch and suggest improvements or alternate solutions. Still, s/he didn't really say "I applied the patch to my local Struts copy and tried it out and I think blah blah blah...". Maybe a more realistic scenario would be a call from a committer for volunteers to specifically review, apply, and test a patch that he's thinking of applying to CVS. I think this has happened at least once during the time I've been lurking, and IIRC it got a few responses and the patch got applied. Also, I hope this isn't the only criteria for determining whether an issue is one that affects many people. I know it's been said here before that "patches are the only votes that count", but still, maybe we can use the bugzilla voting mechanism to encourage users to give feedback on which ones affect them the most. Hubert --- Steve Raeburn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Michael, > > I'd like to follow-up on just one point - reviewing of patches. > > Anyone can monitor bugzilla and review patches when they come in. If > several people send feedback, via bugzilla or via the mailing lists, it > might speed up the process of getting those patches into CVS. > > If there's a patch that you would find useful, try it out and report > back. If several people are reporting back about the same patch and they > all say it solves the problem, then we know that a) this is an issue > that affects many people b) the patch is probably good. > > In that case, the chances of a committer spending time looking at the > problem is greatly increased because they know it's a worthwhile cause > and that a probable solution exists. > > So there is at least one way for more people to contribute AND reduce > the backlog of requests. > > Steve > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Michael McGrady [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: July 4, 2004 11:46 AM > > To: Struts Developers List > > Subject: Re: thoughts on encouraging user development > > > > > > This was one of the more helpful posts in this regard in a long > > time. Thanks Ted. > > > > From the point of view of someone who regularly adds code to > > the struts > > framework on my own site but whom never really offers that > > code to the > > community, EXCEPT VIA THE struts WIKI (for reasons explained > > here before), > > it might be helpful if someone with perspective on the struts > > "project" > > indicated in clear terms what would be helpful. I can tell > > you that I > > personally don't have a clue, even though I am daily in > > contact with all > > the idea emanating out of struts. I think I have a sufficient > > understanding of struts to write the platform from scratch. > > But, I don't > > have the time to burrow through the administrative details to > > get involved > > seriously in the community. This is especially so if > > contributions are > > going to just sit without review for an indeterminate period. > > I think > > everyone likes to think that there work is going to at least > > have a chance > > at making a difference. > > > > This is not written in despair. I can tell that struts is doing just > > fine. Great in fact. Love it. Just some thoughts if anyone > > cares about > > this perspective. > > > > Michael > > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
