[Python-Dev] Bug Day in review

[Johannes Gijsbers]

Well, Python Bug Day 4 was held yesterday. 12 patches and 10 bugs were
closed. Also, there are some bugs that are almost closable on
http://python.org/moin/PythonBugDayStatus. These need to be reviewed by
a committer.

Things I noticed:

* One one hand, no regressions were introduced, as far as I can tell.
  On the other hand, it's pretty hard to fix a lot of bugs if you're
  trying to keep regressions to a minimum.

* Most people just don't know where to start with fixing the bugs. We
  had a list of 'easy-to-fix' bugs on the second bug day, and it worked
  out pretty well. We should probably prepare one for the next one as
  well.

* The Python bug list may seem pretty large, but it isn't as bad it
  looks. Most of the bugs are either a corner case or a design
  limitation. Both types are hard to fix; there are very few glaringly
  obvious, easy-to-fix bugs left.

* I'm still too much of a newbie developer to run a bug day completely
  by myself. I can help out people with the process of fixing bugs, but
  I can't simultaneously learn about new parts of the Python source.

Conclusions for the next bug day:

* I'm willing to organize another bug day, but I'm not going to do it
  alone. A combination of a more experienced developer (for the hard
  technical decisions/discussions) and me (for introducing new
  developers to the process) would probably work out better.

* There should be a way to mark bugs as "easy-to-fix". I'll try to work
  in this into Roundup somehow, but until we migrate to that, I propose
  that if anyone (committer or otherwise) sees a bug that seems easy to
  fix for a new developer, (s)he should add it to the PythonBugDayStatus
  page.

* Right before a release probably isn't the best time to hold a bug day.

Cheers,

Johannes