[sage-support] Re: Those cookies again...
Hello ! > Making bug-fix releases is an essential part of professional software > development. Jeff is right - it is the professional thing to do. > Unfortunately, > most Sage developers do not have a background in software engineering, so do > not > appreciate that. I know I am just handing the stick, but I think some choices in software development - like this one -- should not be considered as lack of "knowledge/skill/talent" but just taste ? -1 to bug-fix only releases. The "professionalism" may be improved, but at the cost of fun. :-D Nathann (P.S.: You can now use the stick) -- To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-support] Those cookies again...
On 08/22/10 11:34 PM, Mike Witt wrote: On 08/22/2010 01:01:17 PM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote: On 08/22/10 04:47 PM, Jeff Post wrote: On Sunday 22 August 2010 08:07, Mike Witt wrote: Having said this, I can't help but wonder what possible motivation there could be, among developers, to do something like a bug fix release? Professionalism? Jeff Mike, Making bug-fix releases is an essential part of professional software development. Jeff is right - it is the professional thing to do. Unfortunately, most Sage developers do not have a background in software engineering, so do not appreciate that. As for motivation, these two links might give you some thoughts. There's some very useful responses on the first link. http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=17798 http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0006/ Dave I may not have been thinking too clearly when I wrote that last paragraph. I was, after all, trying to argue *in favor* of bug fixes :-) -Mike Unfortunately, I think a lot of Sage developers would be unhappy about bug-fix releases. William is far from keen on the idea and I think there are others who share his view. Dave -- To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-support] Those cookies again...
On 08/22/2010 01:01:17 PM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote: On 08/22/10 04:47 PM, Jeff Post wrote: On Sunday 22 August 2010 08:07, Mike Witt wrote: Having said this, I can't help but wonder what possible motivation there could be, among developers, to do something like a bug fix release? Professionalism? Jeff Mike, Making bug-fix releases is an essential part of professional software development. Jeff is right - it is the professional thing to do. Unfortunately, most Sage developers do not have a background in software engineering, so do not appreciate that. As for motivation, these two links might give you some thoughts. There's some very useful responses on the first link. http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=17798 http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0006/ Dave I may not have been thinking too clearly when I wrote that last paragraph. I was, after all, trying to argue *in favor* of bug fixes :-) -Mike -- To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-support] Those cookies again...
On 08/22/10 04:47 PM, Jeff Post wrote: On Sunday 22 August 2010 08:07, Mike Witt wrote: Having said this, I can't help but wonder what possible motivation there could be, among developers, to do something like a bug fix release? Professionalism? Jeff Mike, Making bug-fix releases is an essential part of professional software development. Jeff is right - it is the professional thing to do. Unfortunately, most Sage developers do not have a background in software engineering, so do not appreciate that. As for motivation, these two links might give you some thoughts. There's some very useful responses on the first link. http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=17798 http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0006/ Dave -- To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org
[sage-support] Re: Those cookies again...
On 22 Aug., 17:47, Jeff Post wrote: > On Sunday 22 August 2010 08:07, Mike Witt wrote: > > > Having said this, I can't help but wonder what possible > > motivation there could be, among developers, to do something > > like a bug fix release? > > Professionalism? Pride in their work? Simon -- To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-support] Those cookies again...
On Sunday 22 August 2010 08:07, Mike Witt wrote: > > Having said this, I can't help but wonder what possible > motivation there could be, among developers, to do something > like a bug fix release? > Professionalism? Jeff -- To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-support] Those cookies again...
On 08/22/2010 01:56:18 AM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote: On 08/22/10 03:12 AM, kcrisman wrote: I don't know that we've had as many people complaining about cookies recently. Maybe this has been fixed. Unfortunately, we just upgraded our campus server to 4.3 (the latest VMWare image that we hadn't heard problems about) and apparently it is hexed by the cookie issue (namely, that it wants you to delete Sage cookies before it actually lets you log in). This is particularly vexing because I can't get it to let me log in at all. I can even get rid of all Sage cookies, restart the browser (Safari), go to the notebook server, then delete the one cookie I get there, and STILL it doesn't let me log in. I've seen that problem too. I can't say for sure whether it has been fixed, but I have some comments about this further down. Sysadmin has found possible workaround of deleting history of the browser. This is fine in a lab, but potentially very crippling for those of us who rely on auto-completion of often-visited sites. Sysadmin is also very unlikely to try 4.5.2 VMWare image after recent reports of it not being so hot, though I think those may have been exaggerated - and anyhow he has a lot to do with the start of classes. I expect Sage upgrades will slip further down your system admin's priority list if they are causing him problems. I am really hesitant to use this in class when I can't even make it work on my own computer properly. I don't blame you. I think I now start to understand the arguments about rather having one version that works rather than constant upgrades... Thanks, - kcrisman I think Peter Jeremy summed up the problem quite well when he said this on a trac ticket http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ticket/6456#comment:67 === From Peter Jeremy === I am very concerned at this "release it now, we'll make it work later" mentality. In my opinion, (and one I think that is shared by Peter too), Sage needs to devote *far* more time to testing, and a lot less time to adding features, if it's ever to become a viable alternative to the 4 M's. At the most basic level, the notebook does not even produce valid HTML. The login page has errors, which one discovers when one searches with the W3C validator. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sagenb.org%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 I note two of the errors are: == # Error Line 91, Column 31: The for attribute of the label element must refer to a form control. Username ✉ # Error Line 96, Column 34: The for attribute of the label element must refer to a form control. Password I wonder if those errors have anything to do with logging in? The only possible way Sage might get less buggy, is for more people with similar views to me, make them known to William. *Perhaps*, if he realises people like you are reluctant to use Sage for classes because of the bug rates, he might do something to address the quality control issues. One of the release mangers for 4.5.3 has said the first release candidate for 4.5.3 will be available on Monday and he hopes to release 4.5.3 on Friday. That's simply insufficient time for testing in my personal personal opinion. I'd like to see regular "bug-fix-only" releases, where no new features are added, but only code that addresses known bugs is incorporated. Whilst Brooks claims in his book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month#The_tendency_towards_irreducible_number_of_errors that === in a suitably complex system there is a certain irreducible number of errors. Any attempt to fix observed errors tends to result in the introduction of other errors === I think Sage is a long way from that point. Sage is certainly "suitably complex", but I don't think it's reached the point where attempts to fix bugs will not reduce the total number of bugs. I think with some effort, and a change of attitude, the number of bugs in Sage could be reduced, but this would be at the expense of adding new features. It might even lose some developers, who can't tolerate such a change of attitude. Just my 2 pennies Dave For whatever it's worth I'd like to say that I emphatically agree that more attention to fixing bugs (presumably at the expense of adding features) would make Sage *much* more viable from my point of view. My point of view being as: (1) Not a developer, but simply a user. (2) Not a mathematician, but someone who is (late in the day :-) slowly making my way through the undergrad
Re: [sage-support] Those cookies again...
On 08/22/10 03:12 AM, kcrisman wrote: I don't know that we've had as many people complaining about cookies recently. Maybe this has been fixed. Unfortunately, we just upgraded our campus server to 4.3 (the latest VMWare image that we hadn't heard problems about) and apparently it is hexed by the cookie issue (namely, that it wants you to delete Sage cookies before it actually lets you log in). This is particularly vexing because I can't get it to let me log in at all. I can even get rid of all Sage cookies, restart the browser (Safari), go to the notebook server, then delete the one cookie I get there, and STILL it doesn't let me log in. I've seen that problem too. I can't say for sure whether it has been fixed, but I have some comments about this further down. Sysadmin has found possible workaround of deleting history of the browser. This is fine in a lab, but potentially very crippling for those of us who rely on auto-completion of often-visited sites. Sysadmin is also very unlikely to try 4.5.2 VMWare image after recent reports of it not being so hot, though I think those may have been exaggerated - and anyhow he has a lot to do with the start of classes. I expect Sage upgrades will slip further down your system admin's priority list if they are causing him problems. I am really hesitant to use this in class when I can't even make it work on my own computer properly. I don't blame you. I think I now start to understand the arguments about rather having one version that works rather than constant upgrades... Thanks, - kcrisman I think Peter Jeremy summed up the problem quite well when he said this on a trac ticket http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ticket/6456#comment:67 === From Peter Jeremy === I am very concerned at this "release it now, we'll make it work later" mentality. In my opinion, (and one I think that is shared by Peter too), Sage needs to devote *far* more time to testing, and a lot less time to adding features, if it's ever to become a viable alternative to the 4 M's. At the most basic level, the notebook does not even produce valid HTML. The login page has errors, which one discovers when one searches with the W3C validator. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sagenb.org%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 I note two of the errors are: == # Error Line 91, Column 31: The for attribute of the label element must refer to a form control. Username ✉ # Error Line 96, Column 34: The for attribute of the label element must refer to a form control. Password I wonder if those errors have anything to do with logging in? The only possible way Sage might get less buggy, is for more people with similar views to me, make them known to William. *Perhaps*, if he realises people like you are reluctant to use Sage for classes because of the bug rates, he might do something to address the quality control issues. One of the release mangers for 4.5.3 has said the first release candidate for 4.5.3 will be available on Monday and he hopes to release 4.5.3 on Friday. That's simply insufficient time for testing in my personal personal opinion. I'd like to see regular "bug-fix-only" releases, where no new features are added, but only code that addresses known bugs is incorporated. Whilst Brooks claims in his book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month#The_tendency_towards_irreducible_number_of_errors that === in a suitably complex system there is a certain irreducible number of errors. Any attempt to fix observed errors tends to result in the introduction of other errors === I think Sage is a long way from that point. Sage is certainly "suitably complex", but I don't think it's reached the point where attempts to fix bugs will not reduce the total number of bugs. I think with some effort, and a change of attitude, the number of bugs in Sage could be reduced, but this would be at the expense of adding new features. It might even lose some developers, who can't tolerate such a change of attitude. Just my 2 pennies Dave -- To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org
