Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 3:09 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 5:28 PM, Kay Schenk kay.sch...@gmail.com wrote: On 10/26/2012 07:26 AM, Rob Weir wrote: On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 3:47 AM, Andre Fischer awf@gmail.com wrote: On 24.10.2012 22:28, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote: @Regina, Yes, Wizard is a reference to the level of mastery that a solver must possess, and is one of those which one of these words does not belong solutions. There is a well-known *logarithmic* difficulty scale that has been used over 40 years for problem difficulty. It might be worth adapting: (after unknown), 00 easy - immediately solvable by someone willing to do it 10 simple - takes minutes 20 medium, average - quarter hour 30 moderate, an evening 40 difficult, challenging, non-trivial (term project, GSoC...) 50 unsolved, deep, requires a breakthrough, research (PhD dissertation) 60 intractable (that I just made up - probably not something that is technically feasible regardless of skill, Nobel Prize, P = NP, etc.) Is this not similar to what Knuth used (uses) in his Art of Computer Programming series? It reminds me of Knuth as well. In any case, I've added the new field, using the above scale, but changing unsolved to research, since all open bugs are unsolved in some sense. -Rob Rob, Will you be updating the information/instructions on: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/QA/HowToFileIssue with this new field? I don't think the average bug reporter has any idea whether something is an easy fix or not. Only a developer would know this. And developers don't read pages with names like 'How to file a good Issue ;-) But I will document as part of the new volunteer orientation stuff I'm writing up. There are a number of pieces that I need to connect together -- the new volunteers directory, the new orientation modules, the BZ difficulty field, etc. Hopefully I can get this ready to launch soon. OK, I know what you're saying...the thing is this will be a field the reporter can access, correct? They *may* put something in or wonder what they should use. I just think for completeness it should be included. and thanks for all of this... -Rob -Andre -- MzK Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. -- Robert Heinlein -- MzK Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. -- Robert Heinlein
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
On 24.10.2012 22:28, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote: @Regina, Yes, Wizard is a reference to the level of mastery that a solver must possess, and is one of those which one of these words does not belong solutions. There is a well-known *logarithmic* difficulty scale that has been used over 40 years for problem difficulty. It might be worth adapting: (after unknown), 00 easy - immediately solvable by someone willing to do it 10 simple - takes minutes 20 medium, average - quarter hour 30 moderate, an evening 40 difficult, challenging, non-trivial (term project, GSoC...) 50 unsolved, deep, requires a breakthrough, research (PhD dissertation) 60 intractable (that I just made up - probably not something that is technically feasible regardless of skill, Nobel Prize, P = NP, etc.) Is this not similar to what Knuth used (uses) in his Art of Computer Programming series? -Andre
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 3:47 AM, Andre Fischer awf@gmail.com wrote: On 24.10.2012 22:28, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote: @Regina, Yes, Wizard is a reference to the level of mastery that a solver must possess, and is one of those which one of these words does not belong solutions. There is a well-known *logarithmic* difficulty scale that has been used over 40 years for problem difficulty. It might be worth adapting: (after unknown), 00 easy - immediately solvable by someone willing to do it 10 simple - takes minutes 20 medium, average - quarter hour 30 moderate, an evening 40 difficult, challenging, non-trivial (term project, GSoC...) 50 unsolved, deep, requires a breakthrough, research (PhD dissertation) 60 intractable (that I just made up - probably not something that is technically feasible regardless of skill, Nobel Prize, P = NP, etc.) Is this not similar to what Knuth used (uses) in his Art of Computer Programming series? It reminds me of Knuth as well. In any case, I've added the new field, using the above scale, but changing unsolved to research, since all open bugs are unsolved in some sense. -Rob -Andre
RE: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
@Andre, Absolutely. Knuth originally published his scale for difficulty of exercises in 1968. It is in the Notes on Exercises in every edition since, including the 1997 version that I use now. I modified it as you can see. Also, Knuth has a way to indicate when there were special skills needed along with the level of difficulty. HM for higher-math, M for mathematically oriented. I suppose one could use a CS (computer-science) difficulty as well as Advanced CS or similar prefix. There are problems where one needs to prove that an algorithm is sound and also analysis with regard to the performance of an algorithm, when one is required. - Dennis Note: Although Fermat's famous theorem was proved since, Knuth has reduced it in the first 4 exercises in the book from [HM50] to [HM45] because it is still difficult to know how to do that proof even now. -Original Message- From: Andre Fischer [mailto:awf@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 00:48 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla On 24.10.2012 22:28, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote: @Regina, Yes, Wizard is a reference to the level of mastery that a solver must possess, and is one of those which one of these words does not belong solutions. There is a well-known *logarithmic* difficulty scale that has been used over 40 years for problem difficulty. It might be worth adapting: (after unknown), 00 easy - immediately solvable by someone willing to do it 10 simple - takes minutes 20 medium, average - quarter hour 30 moderate, an evening 40 difficult, challenging, non-trivial (term project, GSoC...) 50 unsolved, deep, requires a breakthrough, research (PhD dissertation) 60 intractable (that I just made up - probably not something that is technically feasible regardless of skill, Nobel Prize, P = NP, etc.) Is this not similar to what Knuth used (uses) in his Art of Computer Programming series? -Andre
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
Am 10/24/2012 09:08 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) I'd then rely on other developers to help seed the database with some TRIVIAL and EASY bugs, so new volunteers will have something to work with as they familiarize themselves with the project. I'll wait 72 hours, etc. Even if it was not really 3 days ;-) and I'm a bit late, I just wanted to tell that this seems good idea to attract more new volunteers to get an entry point into our project. Marcus
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 5:28 PM, Kay Schenk kay.sch...@gmail.com wrote: On 10/26/2012 07:26 AM, Rob Weir wrote: On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 3:47 AM, Andre Fischer awf@gmail.com wrote: On 24.10.2012 22:28, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote: @Regina, Yes, Wizard is a reference to the level of mastery that a solver must possess, and is one of those which one of these words does not belong solutions. There is a well-known *logarithmic* difficulty scale that has been used over 40 years for problem difficulty. It might be worth adapting: (after unknown), 00 easy - immediately solvable by someone willing to do it 10 simple - takes minutes 20 medium, average - quarter hour 30 moderate, an evening 40 difficult, challenging, non-trivial (term project, GSoC...) 50 unsolved, deep, requires a breakthrough, research (PhD dissertation) 60 intractable (that I just made up - probably not something that is technically feasible regardless of skill, Nobel Prize, P = NP, etc.) Is this not similar to what Knuth used (uses) in his Art of Computer Programming series? It reminds me of Knuth as well. In any case, I've added the new field, using the above scale, but changing unsolved to research, since all open bugs are unsolved in some sense. -Rob Rob, Will you be updating the information/instructions on: http://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/QA/HowToFileIssue with this new field? I don't think the average bug reporter has any idea whether something is an easy fix or not. Only a developer would know this. And developers don't read pages with names like 'How to file a good Issue ;-) But I will document as part of the new volunteer orientation stuff I'm writing up. There are a number of pieces that I need to connect together -- the new volunteers directory, the new orientation modules, the BZ difficulty field, etc. Hopefully I can get this ready to launch soon. -Rob -Andre -- MzK Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. -- Robert Heinlein
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
On 24.10.2012 21:08, Rob Weir wrote: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. FWIW there is a keyword easy2dev http://s.apache.org/easy2dev_open that was used to mark easy to develop issues. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) Using a separate field and getting rid of the easy2dev keyword is a good idea. I agree with Regina on the level naming and I also like Dennis' logarithmic scale idea. I'd also like to point out that there are several dimensions to it: - the difficulty from a language/debugging-skills standpoint - the difficulty for any developer new to the codebase E.g. UNO is rarely used outside of the OpenOffice ecosystem. Using UNO's multiple inheritance feature to write alternatives to existing old-style interfaces might be a very challenging task for newcomers but a trivial task to someone familiar with these concepts. Herbert
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
Hi. On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 5:08 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) I'd then rely on other developers to help seed the database with some TRIVIAL and EASY bugs, so new volunteers will have something to work with as they familiarize themselves with the project. I'll wait 72 hours, etc. Regards, -Rob +1 -- Albino
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
On 10/24/2012 02:15 PM, Donald Whytock wrote: Apache Camel uses an Estimated Complexity custom field in the Apache Issues Tracker. Current values in it are Any, Unknown, Novice, Moderate, Advanced, Guru and Needs James Gosling. LOL! :D Had to look him up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gosling Don On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 4:45 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts lui...@gmail.com wrote: On 12-10-24, at 16:28 , Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: @Regina, Yes, Wizard is a reference to the level of mastery that a solver must possess, and is one of those which one of these words does not belong solutions. There is a well-known *logarithmic* difficulty scale that has been used over 40 years for problem difficulty. It might be worth adapting: (after unknown), 00 easy - immediately solvable by someone willing to do it 10 simple - takes minutes 20 medium, average - quarter hour 30 moderate, an evening 40 difficult, challenging, non-trivial (term project, GSoC...) 50 unsolved, deep, requires a breakthrough, research (PhD dissertation) 60 intractable (that I just made up - probably not something that is technically feasible regardless of skill, Nobel Prize, P = NP, etc.) I suspect this scale has too much at the low end and perhaps not enough steps at the high end. Perhaps there are two factors - skills and work factor - how long for someone of the necessary skills? Or else work factor is suggestive of the level of skill? easy - minutes (fixing a typo on a web page) simple - hour(s) moderate - days difficult, challenging - weeks hard, demanding - months stubborn - years (aka, intractable) All of these assume fluency with basic tools and facility with the subject matter of the issue. For example, fixing change-tracking is at least hard. - Dennis One aspect that has been used and not used enough is to consider this in light of how a student or neophyte might approach the task and whether it demands the added help a mentor can offer. Louis -Original Message- From: Regina Henschel [mailto:rb.hensc...@t-online.de] Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 13:04 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla Hi Rob, Rob Weir schrieb: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD WIZARD is used in AOO UI in the meaning of 'assistant' or step by step workflow. Therefore it might be not understood here. I need to look up other meanings in a dictionary. I would drop it. HARD as highest step is sufficient. TRIVIAL sounds devaluating to me. Perhaps BEGINNER or STARTER is more neutral? Being able to start is not only a question, whether the task is easy or not from an objective point of view. Beyond that a mentor is needed. Perhaps a category MENTORED instead of TRIVIAL is useful. A senior developer would set it (and put himself in CC) if he is willing to guide a newcomer. (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) I'd then rely on other developers to help seed the database with some TRIVIAL and EASY bugs, so new volunteers will have something to work with as they familiarize themselves with the project. I'll wait 72 hours, etc. In general I thing it is a good idea. Using Bugzilla has the advantage, that it is not necessary to hold a Wiki page in sync with Bugzilla. Kind regards Regina -- MzK Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. -- Robert Heinlein
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
+1 On 24 October 2012 21:08, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) I'd then rely on other developers to help seed the database with some TRIVIAL and EASY bugs, so new volunteers will have something to work with as they familiarize themselves with the project. I'll wait 72 hours, etc. Regards, -Rob
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
Emphatic +1 Louis On 12-10-24, at 15:08 , Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) I'd then rely on other developers to help seed the database with some TRIVIAL and EASY bugs, so new volunteers will have something to work with as they familiarize themselves with the project. I'll wait 72 hours, etc. Regards, -Rob
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
Hi Rob, that's a cool idea. +1 but I would use the word complexity instead of difficulty. Usually the issue tracker database is customer driven (severity) but a helper field to sort bugs by complexity will help developers to focus on more complex issues. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD Kind regards, Joost
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
Hi Rob, Rob Weir schrieb: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD WIZARD is used in AOO UI in the meaning of 'assistant' or step by step workflow. Therefore it might be not understood here. I need to look up other meanings in a dictionary. I would drop it. HARD as highest step is sufficient. TRIVIAL sounds devaluating to me. Perhaps BEGINNER or STARTER is more neutral? Being able to start is not only a question, whether the task is easy or not from an objective point of view. Beyond that a mentor is needed. Perhaps a category MENTORED instead of TRIVIAL is useful. A senior developer would set it (and put himself in CC) if he is willing to guide a newcomer. (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) I'd then rely on other developers to help seed the database with some TRIVIAL and EASY bugs, so new volunteers will have something to work with as they familiarize themselves with the project. I'll wait 72 hours, etc. In general I thing it is a good idea. Using Bugzilla has the advantage, that it is not necessary to hold a Wiki page in sync with Bugzilla. Kind regards Regina
RE: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
@Regina, Yes, Wizard is a reference to the level of mastery that a solver must possess, and is one of those which one of these words does not belong solutions. There is a well-known *logarithmic* difficulty scale that has been used over 40 years for problem difficulty. It might be worth adapting: (after unknown), 00 easy - immediately solvable by someone willing to do it 10 simple - takes minutes 20 medium, average - quarter hour 30 moderate, an evening 40 difficult, challenging, non-trivial (term project, GSoC...) 50 unsolved, deep, requires a breakthrough, research (PhD dissertation) 60 intractable (that I just made up - probably not something that is technically feasible regardless of skill, Nobel Prize, P = NP, etc.) I suspect this scale has too much at the low end and perhaps not enough steps at the high end. Perhaps there are two factors - skills and work factor - how long for someone of the necessary skills? Or else work factor is suggestive of the level of skill? easy - minutes (fixing a typo on a web page) simple - hour(s) moderate - days difficult, challenging - weeks hard, demanding - months stubborn - years (aka, intractable) All of these assume fluency with basic tools and facility with the subject matter of the issue. For example, fixing change-tracking is at least hard. - Dennis -Original Message- From: Regina Henschel [mailto:rb.hensc...@t-online.de] Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 13:04 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla Hi Rob, Rob Weir schrieb: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD WIZARD is used in AOO UI in the meaning of 'assistant' or step by step workflow. Therefore it might be not understood here. I need to look up other meanings in a dictionary. I would drop it. HARD as highest step is sufficient. TRIVIAL sounds devaluating to me. Perhaps BEGINNER or STARTER is more neutral? Being able to start is not only a question, whether the task is easy or not from an objective point of view. Beyond that a mentor is needed. Perhaps a category MENTORED instead of TRIVIAL is useful. A senior developer would set it (and put himself in CC) if he is willing to guide a newcomer. (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) I'd then rely on other developers to help seed the database with some TRIVIAL and EASY bugs, so new volunteers will have something to work with as they familiarize themselves with the project. I'll wait 72 hours, etc. In general I thing it is a good idea. Using Bugzilla has the advantage, that it is not necessary to hold a Wiki page in sync with Bugzilla. Kind regards Regina
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
On 10/24/2012 01:04 PM, Regina Henschel wrote: Hi Rob, Rob Weir schrieb: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD We have a severity field right now as well. Will these two fields be confusing to some? How can we differentiate them, and, more's to the point, to the reporter? Or do you see this as something that the responder to the bug changes? WIZARD is used in AOO UI in the meaning of 'assistant' or step by step workflow. Therefore it might be not understood here. I need to look up other meanings in a dictionary. I would drop it. HARD as highest step is sufficient. TRIVIAL sounds devaluating to me. Perhaps BEGINNER or STARTER is more neutral? Being able to start is not only a question, whether the task is easy or not from an objective point of view. Beyond that a mentor is needed. Perhaps a category MENTORED instead of TRIVIAL is useful. A senior developer would set it (and put himself in CC) if he is willing to guide a newcomer. (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) I'd then rely on other developers to help seed the database with some TRIVIAL and EASY bugs, so new volunteers will have something to work with as they familiarize themselves with the project. I'll wait 72 hours, etc. In general I thing it is a good idea. Using Bugzilla has the advantage, that it is not necessary to hold a Wiki page in sync with Bugzilla. Kind regards Regina -- MzK Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. -- Robert Heinlein
RE: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
+1 Great question I think severity has to do with the significance to the reporter. It is generally not for the resolver to deal with. Difficulty is an assessment about the effort/skill required to resolve the (confirmed) issue. The cause may be deep and the resolution deeper. -Original Message- From: Kay Schenk [mailto:kay.sch...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 13:28 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla On 10/24/2012 01:04 PM, Regina Henschel wrote: Hi Rob, Rob Weir schrieb: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD We have a severity field right now as well. Will these two fields be confusing to some? How can we differentiate them, and, more's to the point, to the reporter? Or do you see this as something that the responder to the bug changes? WIZARD is used in AOO UI in the meaning of 'assistant' or step by step workflow. Therefore it might be not understood here. I need to look up other meanings in a dictionary. I would drop it. HARD as highest step is sufficient. TRIVIAL sounds devaluating to me. Perhaps BEGINNER or STARTER is more neutral? Being able to start is not only a question, whether the task is easy or not from an objective point of view. Beyond that a mentor is needed. Perhaps a category MENTORED instead of TRIVIAL is useful. A senior developer would set it (and put himself in CC) if he is willing to guide a newcomer. (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) I'd then rely on other developers to help seed the database with some TRIVIAL and EASY bugs, so new volunteers will have something to work with as they familiarize themselves with the project. I'll wait 72 hours, etc. In general I thing it is a good idea. Using Bugzilla has the advantage, that it is not necessary to hold a Wiki page in sync with Bugzilla. Kind regards Regina -- MzK Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. -- Robert Heinlein
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
On 12-10-24, at 16:28 , Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: @Regina, Yes, Wizard is a reference to the level of mastery that a solver must possess, and is one of those which one of these words does not belong solutions. There is a well-known *logarithmic* difficulty scale that has been used over 40 years for problem difficulty. It might be worth adapting: (after unknown), 00 easy - immediately solvable by someone willing to do it 10 simple - takes minutes 20 medium, average - quarter hour 30 moderate, an evening 40 difficult, challenging, non-trivial (term project, GSoC...) 50 unsolved, deep, requires a breakthrough, research (PhD dissertation) 60 intractable (that I just made up - probably not something that is technically feasible regardless of skill, Nobel Prize, P = NP, etc.) I suspect this scale has too much at the low end and perhaps not enough steps at the high end. Perhaps there are two factors - skills and work factor - how long for someone of the necessary skills? Or else work factor is suggestive of the level of skill? easy - minutes (fixing a typo on a web page) simple - hour(s) moderate - days difficult, challenging - weeks hard, demanding - months stubborn - years (aka, intractable) All of these assume fluency with basic tools and facility with the subject matter of the issue. For example, fixing change-tracking is at least hard. - Dennis One aspect that has been used and not used enough is to consider this in light of how a student or neophyte might approach the task and whether it demands the added help a mentor can offer. Louis -Original Message- From: Regina Henschel [mailto:rb.hensc...@t-online.de] Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 13:04 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla Hi Rob, Rob Weir schrieb: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD WIZARD is used in AOO UI in the meaning of 'assistant' or step by step workflow. Therefore it might be not understood here. I need to look up other meanings in a dictionary. I would drop it. HARD as highest step is sufficient. TRIVIAL sounds devaluating to me. Perhaps BEGINNER or STARTER is more neutral? Being able to start is not only a question, whether the task is easy or not from an objective point of view. Beyond that a mentor is needed. Perhaps a category MENTORED instead of TRIVIAL is useful. A senior developer would set it (and put himself in CC) if he is willing to guide a newcomer. (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) I'd then rely on other developers to help seed the database with some TRIVIAL and EASY bugs, so new volunteers will have something to work with as they familiarize themselves with the project. I'll wait 72 hours, etc. In general I thing it is a good idea. Using Bugzilla has the advantage, that it is not necessary to hold a Wiki page in sync with Bugzilla. Kind regards Regina
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
Apache Camel uses an Estimated Complexity custom field in the Apache Issues Tracker. Current values in it are Any, Unknown, Novice, Moderate, Advanced, Guru and Needs James Gosling. Had to look him up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gosling Don On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 4:45 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts lui...@gmail.com wrote: On 12-10-24, at 16:28 , Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: @Regina, Yes, Wizard is a reference to the level of mastery that a solver must possess, and is one of those which one of these words does not belong solutions. There is a well-known *logarithmic* difficulty scale that has been used over 40 years for problem difficulty. It might be worth adapting: (after unknown), 00 easy - immediately solvable by someone willing to do it 10 simple - takes minutes 20 medium, average - quarter hour 30 moderate, an evening 40 difficult, challenging, non-trivial (term project, GSoC...) 50 unsolved, deep, requires a breakthrough, research (PhD dissertation) 60 intractable (that I just made up - probably not something that is technically feasible regardless of skill, Nobel Prize, P = NP, etc.) I suspect this scale has too much at the low end and perhaps not enough steps at the high end. Perhaps there are two factors - skills and work factor - how long for someone of the necessary skills? Or else work factor is suggestive of the level of skill? easy - minutes (fixing a typo on a web page) simple - hour(s) moderate - days difficult, challenging - weeks hard, demanding - months stubborn - years (aka, intractable) All of these assume fluency with basic tools and facility with the subject matter of the issue. For example, fixing change-tracking is at least hard. - Dennis One aspect that has been used and not used enough is to consider this in light of how a student or neophyte might approach the task and whether it demands the added help a mentor can offer. Louis -Original Message- From: Regina Henschel [mailto:rb.hensc...@t-online.de] Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 13:04 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla Hi Rob, Rob Weir schrieb: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD WIZARD is used in AOO UI in the meaning of 'assistant' or step by step workflow. Therefore it might be not understood here. I need to look up other meanings in a dictionary. I would drop it. HARD as highest step is sufficient. TRIVIAL sounds devaluating to me. Perhaps BEGINNER or STARTER is more neutral? Being able to start is not only a question, whether the task is easy or not from an objective point of view. Beyond that a mentor is needed. Perhaps a category MENTORED instead of TRIVIAL is useful. A senior developer would set it (and put himself in CC) if he is willing to guide a newcomer. (I'm certainly open to variations on the names) I'd then rely on other developers to help seed the database with some TRIVIAL and EASY bugs, so new volunteers will have something to work with as they familiarize themselves with the project. I'll wait 72 hours, etc. In general I thing it is a good idea. Using Bugzilla has the advantage, that it is not necessary to hold a Wiki page in sync with Bugzilla. Kind regards Regina
Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla
On Thursday, October 25, 2012, Donald Whytock wrote: Apache Camel uses an Estimated Complexity custom field in the Apache Issues Tracker. Current values in it are Any, Unknown, Novice, Moderate, Advanced, Guru and Needs James Gosling. Had to look him up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gosling Don On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 4:45 PM, Louis Suárez-Potts lui...@gmail.com wrote: On 12-10-24, at 16:28 , Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: @Regina, Yes, Wizard is a reference to the level of mastery that a solver must possess, and is one of those which one of these words does not belong solutions. There is a well-known *logarithmic* difficulty scale that has been used over 40 years for problem difficulty. It might be worth adapting: (after unknown), 00 easy - immediately solvable by someone willing to do it 10 simple - takes minutes 20 medium, average - quarter hour 30 moderate, an evening 40 difficult, challenging, non-trivial (term project, GSoC...) 50 unsolved, deep, requires a breakthrough, research (PhD dissertation) 60 intractable (that I just made up - probably not something that is technically feasible regardless of skill, Nobel Prize, P = NP, etc.) I suspect this scale has too much at the low end and perhaps not enough steps at the high end. Perhaps there are two factors - skills and work factor - how long for someone of the necessary skills? Or else work factor is suggestive of the level of skill? easy - minutes (fixing a typo on a web page) simple - hour(s) moderate - days difficult, challenging - weeks hard, demanding - months stubborn - years (aka, intractable) All of these assume fluency with basic tools and facility with the subject matter of the issue. For example, fixing change-tracking is at least hard. - Dennis One aspect that has been used and not used enough is to consider this in light of how a student or neophyte might approach the task and whether it demands the added help a mentor can offer. Louis -Original Message- From: Regina Henschel [mailto: rb.hensc...@t-online.de rb.henschel@t-online. rb.hensc...@t-online.dederb.hensc...@t-online.de ] Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 13:04 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] difficulty field for Bugzilla Hi Rob, Rob Weir schrieb: As you have probably noticed, I'm engaged in a variety of initiatives to grow the community, bring in more volunteers, etc. One additional piece that I think would be useful is to add a new field to Bugzilla to indicate the difficulty level of the bug. Of course, this will often not be known. But in some cases, we do know, and where we do know we can indicate this. What this allows us to do is then have search filters that return only open easy bugs. These are ideal for new developer volunteers on the project who are looking for items that match their lesser familiarity with the code. It also allows a developer to step up to more challenging bugs over time. A similar approach, which they called easy hacks, was successfully used by LibreOffice. If there are no objections, I'll add a new field to Bugzilla called cf_difficulty_level, and which a drop down UI with the following choices: UNKNOWN (default) TRIVIAL EASY MODERATE HARD WIZARD WIZARD is used in AOO UI in the meaning of 'assistant' or step by step workflow. Therefore it might be not understood here. I need to look up other meanings in a dictionary. I would drop it. HARD as highest step is sufficient. TRIVIAL KG01 - Perhaps we need to separate complexity from size? While this adds yet another field, it does help triage and scope work items.
