Hi, Frank:
Thanks for your clarification. I agree on nearly all counts.
What do LO developers do regarding unit testing — automated tests to
confirm that certain features continue to work? I contribute to another free
open-source software (FOSS) project (r-project.org <http://r-project.org/>),
where “trustworthy software” is ensured (when it is) by a process of developing
test suites and documentation in parallel with the code. Ideally, we’d like to
have 100% coverage of all documented features. Then any fix of one bug that
broke something else would be flagged in the next test cycle. However, this is
(as you say) a volunteer project, and the coverage is never 100%. I don’t take
the time to write tests for every feature, but when new bugs are reported, I
add tests for those before I actually fix them. And some organizations pay
people full time to support FOSS projects. (I’ve heard that Google supports
Linux to ensure that they get features and bug fixes they want. LO would be
better if more large organizations make similar investments in LO.)
Best Wishes
Spencer
> On Jan 25, 2015, at 12:30 PM, CVAlkan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi Spenser:
>
> What you're saying is certainly true, but in this case it really didn't
> sound like it was "pro-Microsoft" but rather "anti-LO" - a subtle difference
> perhaps, but I believe a significant one.
>
> The real danger, I suspect, is that, knowing we're gaining on the
> proprietary world, we tend to automatically discount some of the comments
> that are put out assuming they are "sour grapes" or marketing
> misinformation. In particular, however, the one responder's comment:
> "contains lot of regression errors in the most simple things" (I'm assuming
> the writer means "basic" as opposed to "simple") is really not that
> difficult to justify over the course of the 4.x releases, and not
> recognizing that will not result in the continued progress I think we all
> want. Even realizing that the 4.x series represents a major step forward in
> lots of ways, there are quite a surprising number of things that seem to
> have been "broken" along the path to cleaning and enhancing the code.
>
> I realize that "quite a surprising number of things" is a little vague, so
> I'll mention that one piddly insignificant user alone who isn't in any way
> involved in development or testing (that would be me) has filed several bugs
> that can be looked up: e.g. 74056, 86578, 88208, and all of these were for
> things that I recall successfully using in the past. And it isn't hard to
> locate other new bugs related to indexing, printing, table formatting and so
> forth that others have filed. Whether these bugs were introduced due to
> over-enthusiastic coding, "cowboy coding" (as we used to call it, a flawed
> integration process, lack of testing, lack of code reviews, and so forth is,
> of course, not for me to say. And, I'm using the phrase "lack of testing" to
> include an amateurish reliance on simple "does it work?" testing as opposed
> to doing "real" testing, which can be summed up as "does everything else
> still work?" (that's why good testers are a phenomenally underrated bunch!)
>
> I suspect that's one of the difficulties inherent in this sort of
> development environment: the work is more or less voluntary; developing code
> is fun and results in creative satisfaction (positive feedback); rigorous
> testing for most is not (the best result is neutral and often seems or is
> viewed as unproductive).
>
> One other thing to realize is that the comments I pointed to seem to be
> specific to Writer, which is where the current threat to the proprietary
> world lies (so far as I can tell, Calc has already reached sufficient parity
> with Excel for most typical users) and where the naysayers you refer to are
> taking their current stand.
>
> But, sadly, other modules (particularly Impress) suffer from too much
> attention to cool new features (some of which are admittedly nice), and
> insufficient attention to serious flaws in fundamental functionality, like
> remaining on the same slide when you switch views, handling of tables, and
> so forth.
>
> I'll reiterate the purpose of my post, though: I just thought folks should
> be aware of these sorts of postings, since only LibreOffice users (and not
> potential ones) are likely to be on this particular forum (hence - we're
> preaching to the choir as they say). If a major multiple operating system
> forum has this sort of posting that goes unchallenged, that's another matter
> entirely; my thought was that even a public offer of help - specific
> questions and so forth - would be a positive counter-balance.
>
> Frank
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Interesting-comment-about-Writer-Bugs-in-LinuxQuestions-org-tp4137415p4137497.html
> Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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