Re: Too few people taking care of bug reports, was: Re: Release process (was Re: Move to a cadence release model?)

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 11/11/2015 11:10 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> > I think a significant part of that problem is self-imposed.
>
> Not sure I understand what you mean by that.  Self-imposed by me?

By the Emacs developers, collectively, over time. I don't know who's 
responsible for each issue in particular.

> I disagree.  IME, frequently just looking or stepping through
> unfamiliar code can reveal bugs whose reasons we can easily understand
> and fix.  Just a few minutes ago I had this experience once more, see
> bug#21881.  I assure you I knew nothing at all about mm-url.el, and
> still don't.  Still, it took me just a few minutes to understand why
> EWW barfs and see the solution that I'm sure is right.

I'm not saying I couldn't do that, but there's a limit to the number of 
areas I want to be familiar with. I also have limited of time and other 
projects, starving for attention.

I'm also currently exhausted by trying to explain the difference between 
"project" and "libraries", to some people, over a zillion email messages.

> You should try this some time.  I think everybody here should.

The above is the primary method I do get acquainted with new code.

> Bottom line is: people like you and me (and many others here) know
> quite a lot about Emacs and about debugging, and can find solutions to
> many bugs even in unfamiliar code.

Been there, done that. Especially in third-party code, where it's much 
easier to discuss the issues, explore the code, etc, everything without 
closing the browser.

> As for the bug tracker, I don't see how it could have such a
> detrimental effect on potential contributors.  It's just a mailing
> list, not unlike this one.

"Just a mailing list" is already a big barrier. First, most users are 
unaccustomed to dealing with mailing lists. Second, many that are, still 
expect a bug tracker to be something more.

> I'm not saying there's no place for improvements, but I cannot imagine
> that the reason for such a small number of people who work on bugs is
> the bug tracker.  I think it's more likely the fear of diving into
> unfamiliar code.

How do you explain the low number of users triaging the bugs?