[Python-Dev] New bugtracker project

[Anthony Baxter]

>>> David Ascher wrote
>  I'm also confident that 
> both the new roundup and bugzilla would be better than the SF tracker =).

Aside from the multi-user nature, I think a bunch of postit notes beats 
the SF tracker in some ways.
 
> The biggest issue I see with roundup there is that the original model at 
> least tended to generate wayyy too much mail, and the nosy list concept 
> didn't really work well for long-lived bugs (I didn't really analyze the 
> deeper 'why', sorry -- maybe Mark's memory is better than mine =).

I'm not sure how and why the nosy list concept differs from the way bugzilla
does it. If it's a matter of also having, say, a QA person cc'd on things that
are in their area, well then that's all achievable without a lot of fuss.

> For one thing, it was basically impossible for people with only a 
> peripheral view of the database (managers, QA folks) to get accurate 
> pictures of the database.  Nothing that can't be fixed if one has a real 
> DB backend.

Yep. The default roundupdb is various sorts of files, but there's not a lot
of work to put a real SQL database behind it - it's abstracted out already.
We were talking today about making a network-client-backend that talked 
over a network connection to a remote persistent roundupdb (it's something
that we're starting to need here).

> Well, it's an export task done on a bug -- and all the metadata goes 
> along with it, if you see what I mean.  It just shows up in a different 
> set of queries.

That should be pretty easy, assuming the existing export/import isn't what
you want.

> My only point is that flexibility is fine, but getting the details right 
> is what matters in the end.  Bugzilla's UI is flexible (it's all Perl, 
> after all), but the defaults suck.

Richard's comment was that the default that's there now "looks like the 
original roundup - it seemed like such a good idea at the time. *shudder*".

Web usability and graphic design people are encouraged to volunteer. 
<roundup-devel@sourceforge.net> :)


> No you don't.  =)  Roundup used the filesystem as a database, and lots 
> of things didnt' work right in high load situations.  I'm confident that 
> the new one has a much better design.  

The newer one has abstracted out that stuff so that we can make it Do What
We Want.

Putting these two comments out of order and at the end:

> I hear that bugzilla 
> is also not very 'open' as a project 

I've heard someone else comment similarly.

> The fact that the new roundup is in Python is a huge win IMO compared to 
> bugzilla -- I can't tweak bugzilla, since my Perl sucks.  

I know I looked at bugzilla for work and gave up on it. It's just too ugly
inside, and I really couldn't be bothered trying to figure out the right
magic for changing it to do what I wanted.

Anthony

-- 
Anthony Baxter     <anthony@interlink.com.au>   
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.