zimoun <zimon.touto...@gmail.com> writes: >> I have often seen folks on various projects worried about the size of >> various backlogs: bugs, issues, etc. I think it is human to want to >> try and contain something that appears to be growing, unbounded. > > …about patches only. Bug is another story. :-)
Sorry, I meant to speak to both and instead repeated bugs with a different word, issues! I think patches and bugs are similar in this context. > Just number to fix the idea about large backlog. I think it's really great that you went through the trouble to quantify this. Thank you. >> I think the thing that bothers us is a sense that the backlog is >> becoming unmanageable, or too large to triage. I submit that this is >> actually a tooling and organizational issue, and not an intrinsic >> issue to be solved. Bugs may still be valid; patches may still have >> valuable bones to modify. > > This is the point. What do you do? What could we improve about tooling > and organisation to better scale and deal with this “becoming > unmanageable backlog”? I tried to give some ideas here[1]. > From my point of view, it is good to have this issue. It means that > Guix is becoming more popular. And we – regular user, contributor, > committer – have to adapt to this increasing workload, IMHO. I totally agree! > The question is how. And how to invite people to complete review. :-) Humans usually enjoy community. I think the group activities are really great. >> I think the real issue is that as a backlog grows, the tools we're >> used to using cannot answer the questions we want to ask: what is most >> relevant to me or the project right now? > > If it is relevant to the project then it is also relevant to me as an > user. And vice-versa. ;-) I think I did not give the proper context. I meant relevant as in "I am working on this package. Is anyone else? What tickets might I update? What other trivial bugs might I fix while I'm looking at this?" I.e. relevant in the temporal sense. > When something relevant to me is not making progress, it often means > people are busy elsewhere, so I try to comment (review?) about patches > or bugs. It is a Sisyphean task because the workload never > decreases. :-) Or maybe structured procrastination. ;-) I find it helpful to not think of it as a discrete task, but work along a continuum -- a joyful habit of collectively helping everyone to have something nice :) "A society grows great when old (wo)men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." [1] - https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2021-10/msg00158.html -- Katherine
