Re: What is wrong with Bugzilla? [Was: Re: GCC and Floating-Point]

[William Beebe <wbeebe at gmail dot com>]

On 29 May 2005 11:37:00 +0200, Kai Henningsen <kaih@khms.westfalen.de> wrote:
> scott.ladd@coyotegulch.com (Scott Robert Ladd)  wrote on 28.05.05 in 
> > In my experience, people don't file Bugzilla reports because it feels
> > impersonal and unresponsive. The form is not very user-friendly (as in
> > friendly to users of GCC, not its developers.)
> 
> This is pretty much incomprehensible to me (NOT a gcc developer, but a gcc
> user - that is, a programmer).
> 
> "Feels impersonal"? And this is supposed to be a *problem* with a bug
> reporting system?!
> 
> We're not talking about a trouble ticket system for a matchmaking agency
> here, are we? I certainly don't expect technology in general to feel
> personal. And in fact I thought the problem with the mailing lists *was*
> that they got too personal.
> 
> Unresponsive? I thought the whole point was to avoid responses (in the
> mailing list)?
> 
> Sorry, but this really does not make any sense to me.
> 
> As for the user friendlyness of the forms, well, all I can say is that
> they're certainly not optimal, but they're at least in the upper 30% of
> forms in general one encounters on the web - and that includes non-
> technical stuff. In fact, forms for non-technical stuff are usually
> especially bad - presumably because the authors have less understanding of
> the technology involved.
> 
> MfG Kai

OK, then let me explain it to you. The problem with the GCC Bugzilla
reporting system is that it's a system that only other developers can
tolerate, let alone love. The entire GCC website (of which GCC
Bugzilla is a part) could be the poster child for why developers
should never be allowed to design user interfaces, especially web user
interfaces. I'm sure I'll get flamed for wanting style over substance
or about the proliferation of eye candy, but the GCC web site and it's
attendent support pages can only be charitably described as eye trash.
Yes, you can find the bug link if you read the main page long enough
and move down the page slowly enough, or if, like me, you fire up
Firefox's find and use that to go quickly to the bug link. But that's
beside the point. At the very least the design of the GCC web site
makes the whole project look like someone who has just discovered the
web and decided to build a few pages. And please don't harp on making
it standards compliant and viewable by every browser in existance.
There are plenty of well-designed and excellent sites that follow
those same rules. You just need to be willing to put in the effort to
look a little more professional and polished. And just to stir the pot
further, a web site is an important marketing tool. It's the first
thing that a lot of people will see when they go looking for help. If
you want to have more people participate, then make the tools more
inviting.