[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: "critical" bugs
From:       John Califf <jcaliff () usit ! net>
Date:       2000-09-23 16:09:05
[Download RAW message or body]

Daniel Naber wrote:
> 
> On Sam, 23 Sep 2000, aleXXX wrote:
> 
> > IMHO bugs which keep you from using an app and using another one instead
> > are also critical.
> 
> The problem with this is that there are many people who have simply a
> broken installation and are therefore having regular crashes. We don't
> want to have these issues in the bug system, much less as "critical".
> 
> Regards
>  Daniel
> 
> >> Visit http://master.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<

I completely disagree.  Many bugs or missing usability features which
cause an app to be unusable are very critical even if they don't cause a
crash or data corruption.  Further, many of these shortcomings are well
known to the developers of a particular app or service - it's just that
nobody has complained because they can find another (non-kde) app to
deliver the needed functionality.  Also very bad performance issues are
very critical, because these usually slow down your entire system or
even cause lockups due to runing out of memory if you use such an
application for very long.  I have had this problem with konqueror in
the past loading very large files - performance became so bad that mouse
clicks had no effect and either timed out or were delayed for over a
minute, and similarly the keyboard was unresponsive.  So there was no
way to even get back to a console.  The only solution was to turn off
the computer.

Of course the bug maintainers have the freedom to reclassify the
severity of bugs based on their experience and common sense, and should
feel free to do this often.  For example, if an app starts and runs but
the menus and keyboard macros don't work then the app may be unusable. 
What is the app good for?  Often it's not known by a user or even by the
developer whether or not a particular bug causes data corruption, or
saving the wrong data which is not quite as severe but still pretty
bad.  When apps are having critical performance problems users don't
want to even use them for long enough to discover data corruption.  Such
apps are avoided and never get proper testing and bug reporting.

John
 
>> Visit http://master.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]