[CMake] CMake bug tracker discussion

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2010-12-09 19:23-0500 David Cole wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 7:09 PM, Alan W. Irwin <irwin at beluga.phys.uvic.ca> wrote:
>> On 2010-12-09 17:06-0500 David Cole wrote:
>>
>>> Hello CMake users and devs,
>>>
>>> (And now for something completely different...)
>>>
>>> Controversial questions:
>>>
>>> - Should we eliminate the bug tracker entirely and just do all
>>> discussion and patches on the mailing list? (Why have two sources of
>>> information...?)
>>>
>>> - Or, alternatively, should we eliminate the bulk of mailing list
>>> traffic, and insist on issues in the bug tracker being the main
>>> conversational forum for the whole community?
>>>
>>> I'd like to have this discussion here publicly, to try to get a good
>>> sense of varous community members attitudes and feelings.
>>>
>>>
>>> I'll start the ball rolling by saying that, personally, I like the bug
>>> tracker. I find it much easier to keep a list of issues organized and
>>> accessible than I can with email filters and folders. But I still see
>>> a need for both tools.
>>>
>>
>> I am glad you brought this subject up because there is a real problem
>> engulfing CMake's bug tracker as we speak.  It appears from the
>> resolved category of CMake bugs on the bug tracker, that ~10 bugs were
>> resolved (not necessarily fixed) in November, but that same month saw
>> ~50 new bugs reported (to the cmake-devel mailing list).  That ratio
>> of 5 new bugs for every one resolved means the CMake bug tracker is
>> rapidly being filled with unresolved issues with no hope of ever
>> resolving them unless some substantial changes are made.
>
> A couple of points to alleviate (or at least reduce your concerns)
> about this "trend."
>
> (1) It's not as bad as you think based on November alone. In the last
> 365 days, 589 bugs have been opened and 341 have been resolved. Net
> increase in open bugs of 248 over the last year. So ratio of
> new-bugs:resolved-bugs is actually about 1.7:1.

I am glad to hear the ratio averaged over this entire year is lower
than 5 although I would still argue (see below) that 1.7 is not
sustainable.

>
> (2) Having spent much of my own time perusing bugs in the CMake bug
> tracker, I can tell you that the 0.7 over the 1 that makes up that
> 1.7:1 ratio are noise or duplication or just not worth anyone's time.
>

I am not surprised by that large noise factor at all.  However, I do
believe those noise bug reports are worth someone's time in the sense
that they should be dealt with (closed) as quickly as possible. 
Otherwise, those trying to stay on top of the bug tracker by scanning
through the various unresolved bug reports will start getting turned
off by this noise, become less efficient, etc. That's why I argue
above that the ratio of new bugs to resolutions must be unity (or
ideally lower to start whittling away at the backlog) or else the
bugtracker is unsustainable in the long run.

Alan

__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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