4 ms·

It is stated in the previous talk he mentionned that removal of that feature was planned. In they eye of 'Persch' this is not a bug, it is an improvement to GNO

It is stated in the previous talk he mentionned that removal of that feature was planned. In they eye of 'Persch' this is not a bug, it is an improvement to GNOME. It's not a bug, it is the removal of a feature. Is a bug tracker really the most appropriate place to discuss in which direction a software is to go ? 'No' and a link to the relevant reason and workaround should be fine in that case but apparently that had already been discussed before (and a reason was given). I don't know if removing it through so much commits is good practice but if the feature was to go it doesn't make a difference in the end, he sculpts his piece of the software any way he likes it as long as it's feeature oriented, right ? Note: I have no advice on wether that feature should have been removed or not in the first place.

Tobu 14y ago
By "talk" you mean the link to the "prefs redesign" bug, right? That bug was a good place to discuss which way the redesign would go, but Persch had already decided and made a branch to remove the code.
- johnchristopher 14y ago
  Yes, that "talk". I might be naive about collaborative software development or the way gnome dev handle things but I think bugtrackers should be about bugs and technicalities, not feature approval or UX discussion if user feedback is wanted otherwise everything that a given user finds annoying would be considered a "bug" and drama would occurs. This "talk" is more shocking in my opinion than the one that made the headline.
eloisant 14y ago
Actually I think the line between bugs and new features is thin enough so everything can go to the bug tracker. They're both changes that need to be made, tracked, to get to a better state. Also, inevitably some people in good faith will believe they find a bug when something doesn't work the way they expect it to behave. You can't expect everyone to follow all discussions about features getting cut, so a link to whatever discussion there was (if ever) would have been appropriate.
- johnchristopher 14y ago
  Wouldn't that be a problem for large projects such as gnome or firefox ? Devs would have to spend some precious time curating the bug tracker issues and explaining decisions and educating users instead of using the bug tracker for its intended use: to track bug.
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    Would? I'm not sure about gnome but firefox definitely has feature requests and planned features sitting in its tracker, with some of these created by the devs themselves for coordination.
    - johnchristopher 14y ago
      Well... I am naive about collaborative software development :) Do users post to the firefox bug tracker when features are removed like in the gnome case ? How is it handled ?
      - shabble 14y ago
        Yep. There's one that bit me recently, where Esc key was previously able to stop GIF animations, and was very handy. Apparently, this behaviour was considered a bug, if a very long-lived one. So a recent update 'fixed' that behaviour, although the justification is stronger there, and the workaround (SuperStop addon[2]) is actually useful, although still on a different keybind (Shift-Esc) [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=825486 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=825486 [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/superstop/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/superstop/
marcosdumay 14y ago
> 'No' and a link to the relevant reason and workaround should be fine Yes, the original answer is "just" missing the link. As is also the answer to the why comment.
nirvdrum 14y ago
Well, the point I suppose is the person filing the issue thought it was a bug. Apparently the removal didn't make any release notes, so why believe otherwise? The reason you have these discussions on the issue tracker is so when the next person comes along to file the issue, he/she now has the relevant context. Randomly guessing at which group to search and post to hardly helps in discovery. If you don't want discussion, disable the comments. But that's hardly conducive to good community teamwork. And I'm really not aware of any project that only uses a "bug tracker." They almost all track issues, ranging anywhere from bugs to new feature requests. Maybe Gnome is different in this regard, but I don't think it's crazy for someone to believe otherwise. Redirecting conversation smacks of a "bugger off" mentality.

Tobu 14y ago

By "talk" you mean the link to the "prefs redesign" bug, right? That bug was a good place to discuss which way the redesign would go, but Persch had already decided and made a branch to remove the code.

johnchristopher 14y ago
Yes, that "talk". I might be naive about collaborative software development or the way gnome dev handle things but I think bugtrackers should be about bugs and technicalities, not feature approval or UX discussion if user feedback is wanted otherwise everything that a given user finds annoying would be considered a "bug" and drama would occurs. This "talk" is more shocking in my opinion than the one that made the headline.

eloisant 14y ago

Actually I think the line between bugs and new features is thin enough so everything can go to the bug tracker. They're both changes that need to be made, tracked, to get to a better state. Also, inevitably some people in good faith will believe they find a bug when something doesn't work the way they expect it to behave. You can't expect everyone to follow all discussions about features getting cut, so a link to whatever discussion there was (if ever) would have been appropriate.

johnchristopher 14y ago
Wouldn't that be a problem for large projects such as gnome or firefox ? Devs would have to spend some precious time curating the bug tracker issues and explaining decisions and educating users instead of using the bug tracker for its intended use: to track bug.
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  Would? I'm not sure about gnome but firefox definitely has feature requests and planned features sitting in its tracker, with some of these created by the devs themselves for coordination.
  - johnchristopher 14y ago
    Well... I am naive about collaborative software development :) Do users post to the firefox bug tracker when features are removed like in the gnome case ? How is it handled ?
    - shabble 14y ago
      Yep. There's one that bit me recently, where Esc key was previously able to stop GIF animations, and was very handy. Apparently, this behaviour was considered a bug, if a very long-lived one. So a recent update 'fixed' that behaviour, although the justification is stronger there, and the workaround (SuperStop addon[2]) is actually useful, although still on a different keybind (Shift-Esc) [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=825486 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=825486 [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/superstop/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/superstop/

marcosdumay 14y ago

> 'No' and a link to the relevant reason and workaround should be fine Yes, the original answer is "just" missing the link. As is also the answer to the why comment.

nirvdrum 14y ago

Well, the point I suppose is the person filing the issue thought it was a bug. Apparently the removal didn't make any release notes, so why believe otherwise? The reason you have these discussions on the issue tracker is so when the next person comes along to file the issue, he/she now has the relevant context. Randomly guessing at which group to search and post to hardly helps in discovery. If you don't want discussion, disable the comments. But that's hardly conducive to good community teamwork. And I'm really not aware of any project that only uses a "bug tracker." They almost all track issues, ranging anywhere from bugs to new feature requests. Maybe Gnome is different in this regard, but I don't think it's crazy for someone to believe otherwise. Redirecting conversation smacks of a "bugger off" mentality.