[Python-Dev] Posting frequent spurious changes in bugtracker

[Glenn Linderman]

On 1/3/2013 12:13 PM, Brett Cannon wrote:
> It is a form so technically nothing is being done incorrectly in 
> changing values based on what you submit, whether you view them stale 
> or not.

Well, it sounds like a pretty shaky technology foundation, if 
simultaneous updates of a shared data repository have race conditions.

Certainly leaving a tab open for long periods of time exacerbates the 
issue, as it severely extends the definition of "simultaneous". Without 
that, the likelihood of people doing simultaneous updates is seriously 
reduced, except maybe for bugs with "hot" discussions.

Jesus' suggestion of a hidden version field would help, but could be 
annoying for the case of someone writing a lengthy response, and having 
it discarded because the hidden version field is too old... so care 
would have to be taken to preserve such responses when doing the refresh...

Another possible implementation would be to track which fields in the 
form are actually updated by a submitter... and reject a submission only 
if there was a simultaneous update to that field.

Another possible implementation for fields like nosy, would be to 
display the current list, but provide boxes for additions and deletions, 
rather than allowing editing. Or maybe just a "remove me" button for 
deletions would suffice, with a box for additions.  Then the processing 
would avoid adding duplicates.

People shouldn't have to do heroic things with refreshing to maintain 
the consistency of the underlying data...  database transaction 
technology has been around for quite a few years by now, and is well 
understood.
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