Re: Bugzilla for ruby?

On Mar 6, 2006, at 3:26 AM, Hadmut Danisch wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 02:43:49AM +0900, Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
>>
>> This is the one I use (note: it's in Japanese).
>>
>>   http://mput.dip.jp/rubybugs/superuser.html
>
> Sorry, but my knowledge in Japanese is limited to about three
> words, and I can't read any japanese characters. What about a bug
> database in english?

Meador Inge (partially) answered your question:

On Mar 5, 2006, at 1:20 PM, Meador Inge wrote:
> Is the bug tracker at RubyForge (
> http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?atid=1698&group_id=426&func=browse)  
> actively
> used?

Yes, it is used.  All reports get sent here to this list.

>> When a report is post to the list, this list is updated by
>> volunteers.
>
> I recently posted a comment about ipaddr.rb, which is not exactly
> buggy, but not really well-designed and up to date, and would require
> some re-design. The comment seems to be completely lost.

It might be that nobody else cares enough.  It might also be that you  
didn't submit patches.  Most of the people working on Ruby's  
internals are either very busy working on something they consider  
important to them.  The rest of them are volunteers pursuing their  
own projects.

The fastest way to get attention for your particular bug is to be  
persistent.  Also note that many of the maintainers are non-native  
english speakers.  In my experience they are much more like to read a  
patch or some ruby code than a bunch of english text.

> A bug database has the ability to keep track of feature requests and
> things like that. It also has the ability to have parts of the
> projects (e.g. all those ruby-extensions) maintained by different
> maintainers.

A bug database also has the "feature" of filling up with non-bugs and  
unrealistic feature requests that somebody must wade through and  
throw away.

>> I don't need yet another channel to post
>> bugs.  Current mailing lists are fine. I just need to keep truck of
>> the bugs reported to the lists.
>
> But maybe the need to subscribe to the mailing list and to keep track
> with all that medium-bandwidth postings is what keeps people from
> reporting bugs. You can't report a bug and see what happens without
> buying all the rest of the mailing list at the same time. And I am
> still under the impression that things might get lost.

I've seen the same thing happen in bug tracking databases.  The bug  
DB eventually ends up with a bunch of bugs that the submitter never  
really cared about and won't respond to when asked for more  
information.  The mailing list raises the bar high enough that they  
actually have to subscribe to get their bug fixed.

> And, btw, if there are security issues, they might require a more
> secret and more reliable treatment. Don't get me wrong, but such a
> mailing list still appears a little bit home-brewn-alike. Nearly all
> professional projects use any form of bug database with a user
> interface.

It also keeps the bugs down to bugs that people actually care about  
and keeps the maintenance of crappy bug reports down to a minimum if  
at all.

> Maybe you don't even need to setup your own. I believe there are some
> Bugzilla databases which are open for other open-source projects.

Rubyforge has one, we kind-of use it.

-- 
Eric Hodel - [e-mail] - http://blog.segment7.net
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