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Re: Beyond GCC 3.0: Summing Up


On Mon, 9 Jul 2001, Mark Mitchell wrote:

> This argument is common -- but seems to be refuted by the fact that
> literally hundreds of regressions were fixed on the 3.0 branch, and
> that many more remain.  Why weren't they fixed earlier?  Many of them
> were reported months and months before they were fixed.

Because few enough people look at GNATS, which means that rather than
being a source of clear correct bug reports with concise test cases, it is
mainly a source of junk.  If every PR were correct, applied to current CVS
and had been verified as a genuine bug, people might be more likely to
find bugs to fix there.

It is easy enough for anyone to look through GNATS and find 50 bugs which
are bogus, fixed in current versions, or incomplete and so need to be put
in state "feedback".  But few people do this.  In particular, several very
active GCC developers don't do this - but since the more active GCC
developers are more likely to have the knowledge, memory and experience to
evaluate bug reports and match them against previous discussions, this,
and not just coding, is a desirable contribution.  (Though much of the
filtering of incomplete bug reports could be done simply by a few
volunteers doing basic checks on new PRs as they come in, and this is a
way beginners could be given GNATS-only accounts and contribute.)  Some
statistics on GNATS messages to gcc-prs from January to June of this year:

    970 neil@gcc.gnu.org
    859 nathan@gcc.gnu.org
    565 lerdsuwa@gcc.gnu.org
    341 mmitchel@gcc.gnu.org
    338 jsm28@gcc.gnu.org
    305 bkoz@gcc.gnu.org
    264 rodrigc@gcc.gnu.org
    203 pme@gcc.gnu.org
    174 bryce@gcc.gnu.org
    145 tromey@gcc.gnu.org
    141 rth@gcc.gnu.org
    132 apbianco@gcc.gnu.org
    120 aoliva@gcc.gnu.org
    115 gerald@gcc.gnu.org
     74 pbienst@gcc.gnu.org
     65 toon@gcc.gnu.org
     60 gdr@gcc.gnu.org
     40 jdennett@gcc.gnu.org
     33 dje@gcc.gnu.org
     29 ljrittle@gcc.gnu.org
     25 rearnsha@gcc.gnu.org
     18 warrenl@gcc.gnu.org
     16 bernds@gcc.gnu.org
     14 ghazi@gcc.gnu.org
     10 joel@gcc.gnu.org
     10 green@gcc.gnu.org
      6 hubicka@gcc.gnu.org
      5 bje@gcc.gnu.org
      4 ro@gcc.gnu.org
      3 loewis@gcc.gnu.org
      2 dj@gcc.gnu.org
      1 wilson@gcc.gnu.org
      1 pb@gcc.gnu.org

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
jsm28@cam.ac.uk


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