On Sat, Jul 14, 2007 at 08:48:20AM -0700, Josh Peek wrote: > On Jul 14, 6:13 am, Matthew Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > What would happen if a bug was reported by one person but an incomplete > > patch contributed by someone else? Would the report get closed (which to > > the initial reporter suggests the issue is solved) because the patch is > > dodgy? > > Usually patches with good units tests that prove a bug are fixed > rather quickly.
(Good thing you put 'usually' in there, because I've got a patch in the system that fixes a bug in the *test suite* that's been hanging for over a week now) Is it the policy of the Rails project that defect reports without a verifiable test case are invalid and will be closed? If a project was going to adopt that policy, something like Rails would be the most likely to be able to pull it off, because every user should be a developer. Having spent a few hours a day the last few weeks helping on the #rubyonrails IRC channel, though, I'm not sure it's a practical proposition -- most people don't "get" testing, and plenty of Rails' users aren't sufficiently good programmers to be able to write a solid test case for something as complex as Rails. > The problem is we have tons of unverified (and bogus) > defect reports with no easy way to prove them. So mark them "more info required" with a note that they need to have more info attached or they'll be closed in N days/weeks/months. > No one has the time to > personally debug someone elses problems. <advocate type="devil"> That cuts both ways, though -- I, as a developer, don't have time to debug a problem in Rails. That problem isn't mine -- I didn't write the buggy code that's causing the hassle. It's *your* fault, dammit. </advocate> In reality, I know all about the OSS project philosophy, I'm a great believer in it myself. If you want support, take out a support contract, and all that. Going back to my original point, though, about actively *closing* tickets that document *real* bugs that are trivially verifiable[1] simply because the patch isn't sufficient is only reasonable in one circumstance -- if defect reports without test cases are summarily closed. I haven't seen that policy documented anywhere (and I would imagine something that it would want to be in big letters on the front page), and in fact the exact opposite is stated on the dev front page -- "Tickets are fine". I'm just reporting an irritating inconsistency in the handling of tickets, biased against well-meaning but insufficiently clued contributors (which are the sort of people I'd be wanting to encourage, not discourage, if it were my project). - Matt [1] one of the bugs I found I didn't even have to run the code to find it -- a desk check was enough to make it perfectly obvious. -- Microsoft: We took the "perfect" out of "Wordperfect" --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Core" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-core?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
