Re: [jira] Closed: (DIRSERVER-950) Server Left in Unstable State

[Emmanuel Lecharny]

Ole,

i'm pleased you understand that there were a pb with the JIRA, but I 
also have to tell you, after having read it again, that the pb seems to 
be tricky, so I understand you had to track it step by step.

However, it would be good if you try to follow a better heuristic when 
tracking a bug, and filing a JIRA. Here are some comments on each of 
your additions in the initial JIRA :

1) The first comment was fine, except that it was pretty long, and did 
not help to understand what is happening, except that the server has a 
problem. If you find something which is not expected, and you feel like 
it might be a bug, then first try to find the *shortest* possible 
description, or write a test which expose the problem clearly. A few 
lines of code are better than 200 lines of comments (remember that we 
all speak 'java', but that we are mainly not english speakers)

2) The second comment is totally out of scope. It should not have been 
added. The exception was clear enough abouyt what happened

3) You pointed us to a test which is somewhere on the web. Don't do 
that, it's not convenient, because your test will be very contextual. 
Just attach the whole working test.

4) You say that you can reproduce the bug. Fine. Then just attach the 
new test, with a single explanation. Again, a few lines of JAVA are 
better than 10 lines of comments. However, the second paragraph is 
needed, because it carries interesting informations

5) The best comment you added, when I read it for the third time, 
because now I can understand what happens. But be factual, and try to 
give the simplest possible explaination for the poor committer who will 
try to understand the problem.

I would add that JIRA is not a Memo pad, so if you can spend some more 
time to analyze the problem, then you will add less comments and 
probably more accurates.

Remember one thing : if the bug report is fuzzy, then the fix will be 
fuzzy too. Of course, sometime, this is not easy to know what is the 
cause, but if it's difficult for you, it'as also difficult for us. You 
have an advantage, you are just trying to make the test working, so you 
are very focused on the problem, when we are just doing something 
probably not related. If you want us to be able to dive into the problem 
fast enough, you have to keep it very clear.

Last thing : you don't have to reinstall the server : just delete the 
data (a directory called example.com, or whatever name you gave to your 
partition, plus the schema directory in server-work). It will do the trick.

Emmanuel