From: Jamis Buck <jgb3@...>
Date: 2004-07-07T03:58:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Bugtracking & UnitTests == good?

Sean O'Dell wrote:

>>It would have to be handled delicately. Otherwise, this sounds like a
>>great way to discourage people from submitting bugs. :( I can think of
>>lots of people, many of whom I work with, who would rather just work
>>around the bug than report it if the bug reporting process was too
>>cumbersome.
> 
> 
> On the other hand, it would save a lot of time trying to decipher cryptic bug 
> reports, or reports that misinterpret the nature of the bug itself, making 
> actual location of the problem difficult.  I would say at least half, if not 
> more, of all bug reports I get don't come with enough information for me to 
> locate the problem, or I simply cannot reproduce the bug as described.
> 
> 	Sean O'Dell

To be sure, there is a trade off. In this case, it's a trade off between 
having really good reports for the bugs that get reported, but missing 
many real bugs that would have been reported if the process were less 
cumbersome, and having poor-to-mediocre bug reports that, when 
reproducible, cover a larger span of bugs.

I know exactly what you mean, Sean--I've recieved the same quality of 
bug reports for many projects, and it can be frustrating. But I'd prefer 
to know that people have having problems, than to say, "gee, no one is 
reporting bugs, therefore my software must be working as expected," when 
that is not really the case.

-- 
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis

"I use octal until I get to 8, and then I switch to decimal."