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Re: Why Is There No Bug Tracker And Why Are Patches Sent Instead Of Pull Requests

From
NKNeal Kreitzinger <nkreitzinger@gmail.com>
Date
Mar 2, 2012, 05:50 UTC
Message-ID
<4F505F8C.70802@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<20120302041924.GG5248@burratino>
On 3/1/2012 10:19 PM, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
>
> That said, a good distributed bugtracker (which implies solving hard
> social problems like "what to do if different contributors disagree on
> severity"

How do you solve that now? You can have a field in the bug-report.txt for "severity" or a severity-file in the commit. If people keep changing it and don't listen to the appointed tie-breaker then those people's patches probably aren't going to get applied anyway.

Show 5 quoted lines
>   and simple technical problems like "how to present a
> coherent conversation based on threads by people who might not have
> been aware of each other") would be a very nice thing to see,
> regardless of the choice of storage and network protocol used to back
> it.

You can have a field in bug-report.txt called "discussion thread" or a file called discussion-thread.txt that contains the link to the mailing list for that thread (even terminal emulators automatically bring up links when you click on them). People would have discussions there like they do now. Real progress updates would be recorded in git. Discussions would remain on the mailing list. Thread posts could also be recorded as git-notes.

Please let me know what else is a "hard social problem". I'm not a bug-tracker expert but I've used a few bug-tracking systems and worked plenty of bugs though never on an opensource project so maybe I'm not aware of the "hard social problems".

That being said, I was in a position where I fixed on average over one bug per day (reported, fixed, tested, moved to production) for a total of 2,000+ bugfixes over about 6 years. The most in one day was about eight (1 per hour). It was a home-grown bugtracking system based on lotus-notes (ie, email integration). Git has send-mail and the mailing list. The workflow was:

(1) User submits bug-report (or enhancement-request). Status = Unassigned, Severity = whatever. (2) Manager reviews bug-report and assigns to developer or rejects it. Status = Development or Rejected, Severity = whatever (manager might change it). (3) Developer makes fix and marks ready for QA. Status = QA. (3.1) during development Developer makes comments that are sent as emails and User reciprocates. (4) User/tester tests fix and gives signoff. Status = Move-to-Prod. (4.1) during testing the user/tester and developer make comments that are sent as emails. (5) Developer promotes fix to production. Status = Completed. (6) Manager receives notice and acknowledges. Status = Closed.

Here's how that might work with git:

(1) User (john.doe@nowhere.com) submits bug-report (or request). Status = Unassigned, Severity = whatever. [BUG] (starts the thread)

(2) Manager (git-maintainer) reviews bug-report and assigns to developer (or lieutenant) or rejects it. Status = Development or Rejected, Severity = whatever. [DEV] | [REJ] (assigned to developer/lieutentant or rejected)

(3) Developer makes fix and marks ready for QA. Status = QA. (3.1) during development Developer makes comments that are sent as emails and User reciprocates. (makes posts to thread on mailing list) [QA] (fix is in next)

(4) User/tester tests fix and gives signoff. Status = Move-to-Prod. (4.1) during testing the user/tester and developer make comments that are sent as emails. (makes posts to thread on mailing list) [PAS] (fix passed testing)

(5) Developer promotes fix to production. Status = Completed. [CMP] (fix is in rc)

(6) Manager (git-maintainer) receives notice. Status = Closed. [CLS] (fix is in release)

I realize this is not an exact match of the git-workflow, but you get the idea. I'm also new to mailinglists so I'm not sure if you can change part of the subject line. If not, a header in the body could possibly be used.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

v/r, neal

Previous: Junio C HamanoNext: Jonathan Nieder
Message 24 of 37 in “Why Is There No Bug Tracker And Why Are Patches Sent Instead Of Pull Requests”
  1. opticyclicFeb 29, 2012
  2. Brian GernhardtFeb 29, 2012
  3. Junio C HamanoFeb 29, 2012
  4. Jonathan NiederFeb 29, 2012
  5. Andrew ArdillFeb 29, 2012
  6. Greg TroxelMar 1, 2012
  7. Andrew ArdillMar 1, 2012
  8. Junio C HamanoMar 1, 2012
  9. Andrew ArdillMar 1, 2012
  10. Junio C HamanoMar 1, 2012
  11. Andrew ArdillMar 1, 2012
  12. Miles BaderMar 1, 2012
  13. Andrew ArdillMar 1, 2012
  14. Scott ChaconMar 1, 2012
  15. Junio C HamanoMar 1, 2012
  16. Thomas RastMar 1, 2012
  17. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonMar 1, 2012
  18. Andrew ArdillMar 1, 2012
  19. Andrew ArdillMar 1, 2012
  20. Junio C HamanoMar 1, 2012
  21. Neal KreitzingerMar 2, 2012
  22. Jonathan NiederMar 2, 2012
  23. Junio C HamanoMar 2, 2012
  24. Neal KreitzingerMar 2, 2012
  25. Jonathan NiederMar 2, 2012
  26. Junio C HamanoMar 2, 2012
  27. Andreas EricssonMar 2, 2012
  28. Junio C HamanoMar 2, 2012
  29. Andrew ArdillMar 7, 2012
  30. Vincent van RavesteijnMar 7, 2012
  31. Joern HuxhornMar 7, 2012
  32. Jonathan NiederMar 7, 2012
  33. Joern HuxhornMar 7, 2012
  34. Pau Garcia i QuilesMar 7, 2012
  35. Phil HordMar 7, 2012
  36. Carlos Martín NietoFeb 29, 2012
  37. Sitaram ChamartyFeb 29, 2012

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