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Re: Reporting bugs: there is nothing to gain in frustrating reporters
- From: "Giovanni Bajo" <rasky at develer dot com>
- To: "Roberto Bagnara" <bagnara at cs dot unipr dot it>
- Cc: <gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org>
- Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 17:03:17 +0200
- Subject: Re: Reporting bugs: there is nothing to gain in frustrating reporters
- References: <42B03D35.5020907@cs.unipr.it>
Roberto Bagnara <bagnara@cs.unipr.it> wrote:
> 1) I submit a bug report;
> 2) someone looks at it superficially, too superficially, and
> posts a comment that tends to deny there is a problem;
> 3) I and/or someone else explain that the problem is indeed
> there, possibly citing the points of the standards that
> are being violated;
> 4) the person who said the bug was not (exactly) a bug does
> not even care to reply, but the superficial comments
> remain there, probably killing the bug report.
While I agree that it can happen to make a too superficial comment on a bug
(I surely had done this in the past, and Andrew seems to do this very
often), I believe that this does not spoil or kill the bug report itself,
once it was agreed that there is indeed a bug.
Surely, it does annoy the reporter though, which is a serious problem.
> I wonder what is the rationale here. Discouraging bug
> reporters may be an effective way to avoid bug reports pile up,
> but this is certainly not good for GCC.
I totally agree here. I believe Mark already asked us (bugmasters) to be
more polite in their work, and I believe that another official statement in
this direction would help.
> My advice to people filtering bug reports is: if you only had
> time to look at the issue superficially, either do not post
> any comment or be prepared to continue the discussion on more
> serious grounds if the reporter or someone else comes back
> by offering more insight and/or precise clauses of the
> relevant standards.
Agreed. But keep in mind that it is not necessary to reply: once the bug is
open and confirmed, the last comment "wins", in a way. If the bugmaster
wanted to close it, he would just do it, so an objection in a comment does
not make the bug invalid per se.
--
Giovanni Bajo