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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: QA Team [JRT]
From:       James Richard Tyrer <tyrerj () acm ! org>
Date:       2004-01-31 20:44:33
Message-ID: 401C13B1.9050307 () acm ! org
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Thiago Macieira wrote:
> This is almost turning into a flame-war, so I'll try to be careful with
>  my words. I no way I am attacking your person, James, and I applaud 
> your work and your effort, even if at sometimes we are at odds. Since I
>  was named in the discussion, I will add my voice to it, again.

Engineers are used to arguing about things and I don't take that
personally, but yes some of the comments have been personal and that is
unfortunate.

> James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> 
<SNIP>

> That's also a generalisation. Partial support is better than no support.
>  But not in all cases. It is a serious problem if you hit the bug in 
> your daily work, but it's not true for everyone involved and most surely
> not for the developer (or he'd have fixed it a long time ago).

In this specific case, it is possible that I should have seen the problem 
(but 'Joe User wouldn't} because it appears that support for: "Focus 
Strictly Under Mouse" is often lacking -- it is (or was) even denigrated in 
the documentation.  What I did see was that as I was using it that the 
window manager was really screwing up.

However, whoever added the new feature (Focus stealing prevention) should
have done enough testing to see that it simply didn't work correctly with
some Focus policies.  In that case, it could still be included in the
release but it should have been turned off by default.  My rationalization 
for this is that anyone that turned it on would also know how to turn it 
back off it it didn't work.

> So, yes, it's the job of the bug reporter to show that his bug is 
> important.
> 
> 
>>> So while Thiago misunderstands people like anyone else does, I would
>>>  always stand up and get in front of him to defend him from people 
>>> that think their bug reports are more worth than the words they use 
>>> to express them.
>> 
>> If you mean that I thought that my bug report was worth more than 
>> *nothing* then I guess I see your point that you don't want people 
>> that report bugs to expect that they will be fixed.
> 
> 
> That's not how I read Coolo's words. I think he meant "a bug report is 
> worth the words written in it", meaning a lousily-written bug report is
>  worth next to nothing; a difficult to understand bug report is worth 
> less than a well-thought one -- irrespective of the severity of the bug
>  being reported. (Example: we've got serious crashes being reported, but
> the report didn't contain any description, only a backtrace that ended
> before any function was shown. That's one example of a completely
> useless report.)
> 
> We can't fix bugs if we don't understand what the report is about. We 
> can't fix bugs if we can't reproduce them. And we can't fix ALL bugs. 
> The sheer volume of bug reports that we get (300 per day?) is too high:
>  some applications can keep up, others simply can't.
> 
> Konqueror is certainly an example of one that can't. So, if you or 
> anyone else report a bug on Konqueror, chances of it getting fixed -- or
> even looked at! -- are higher if you provide a good bug report and make
> your point clear. (Patches most surely welcome; as are valgrind logs,
> backtraces with symbols, etc.)
> 
> 
>> You are wrong to defend what he did.
> 
> 
> I don't think you have the right to say this.
> 
> 
>> It was not that he might have misunderstood, it was what he did as a
>> result.  He dismissed it out of hand and then offered rationalizations
>> to support his decision.  What should he have done?  If he didn't
>> understand, he should have asked questions.  If he needed more
>> information he should have asked for it.
> 
> 
> Let's review what I did: 
> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-bugs-dist&m=107491405208762&w=2
> 
> Did I close the bug report? No.

But someone else did without fixing it.

> Did I change the severity or priority? No. Did I misunderstand you? Yes,
> I did -- but of course, I didn't know it at that time. Did I know how to
> fix the bug? No. Did I provide my _opinion_? Yes.
> 
> You said "This is the wrong widget." for a widget asking for a new name;
>  I answered "I don't see how this can be the wrong widget.", asked what
>  was wrong about it, then I agreed ("It should, however, offer the 
> option to overwrite as well. ")

Then you did understand the problem which I think that was clearly
mentioned in the bug report:

> "Instead of the pop-up to confirm the overwrite"

> and then I offered my opinion. And my opinion was (and still would be,
> if the bug was restricted to split windows, as I had understood) that
> the bug is no showstopper, however severe.

I guess that it is that "opinion" that I didn't understand.

> Please tell me what was wrong with my attitude, because I still can't 
> see it. I will make the effort to not make the same mistakes again.

I first note that I am not saying that this was a deliberate action on your
part.

You dismissed the bug as being unimportant instead of:

1.	Trying it

2.	Asking for more information.

I always work with split windows because I have a small screen.  Perhaps
other people always work with separate windows.  So, I reported the bug
with a specific case that I knew would allow it to be reproduced.

This specificity is something that I wish the everyone that reports a bug
would do.  Perhaps after you had confirmed that the bug was reproducible as
reported then you might want to ask further questions to determine how
serious it was.  I, having some general knowledge of how code works,
assumed that this bug was a general problem (I was correct).

There also appeared to be some confusion about what I meant about "the
wrong widget".  I would have been clearer if I had said "the wrong widget
configuration" but I, without reading the code, still don't know if these
are separate widgets or if they are different configurations of the same
widget.  Probably it is neither -- that it is inheritance which is a
concept that people don't fully understand to the point that they use it in
normal conversation.

In any case, if someone (or you) had discussed the report with me, there 
would be no problem.  I doubt that you can ever go wrong by asking the 
reporter for more information.

> Note that we ask that the priority field be left to the developers only
>  -- and you were changing it.
> 
OK, but where should I ask?

<SNIP>

> ... with the absence of one such team, the responsability of verifying
> that a bug has been fixed falls to the person who reported it.

Which is what I was suggesting in my original posting.

<SNIP>

> In sum, there are many ways you can help and providing bug reports as 
> you are doing is one of them. You just can't expect your opinion to be 
> taken at face-value at all times.

I don't expect that what I say will be accepted, but I must admit that I
have come to resent my opinions being denigrated -- unfortunately to the
point that I have become too sensitive about it.

--
JRT
 
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