On Saturday, 22 November 2014 8:39 PM, Tom Davies <tomc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >Hi :) >I think there might be a few different things going on there. > >Firstly i have no idea how the devs think or work. Clearly they think very >differently from most users. What seems obvious and makes sense to us is >clearly 'wrong'. > >To me, i'd agree with you, that if it's annoying in one branch and still >exists in the next then it's likely to be annoying in that branch too. >Clearly the devs don't think like that at all. Trying to argue the point >is likely to get you in trouble here. It's one of the reasons i am under >moderation or even chucked off mailing lists here. > > >What normal users, like us, tend to think of as bugs or stability issues is >often technically called something else. So far i can only think of 5 but >i'm sure there are more. The most frequent type of 'bug' reported by >normal users is often really a "broken feature". That is very different >from what the devs would call a "bug", as far as i can make out. It's >certainly NOT a stability issue. Very few bugs are anything to do with >stability. So when something is broken we have to try to figure out >whether the devs would call it; >1. something that behaves differently from certain other programs (but the >LO way might well be better) >2. something behaving weirdly >3. something that changed behaviour >4. a broken feature/thing >5. a bug >or >6. a bug causing a stability issue > >Sometimes there is no practical difference between 1 and 2 or it might be >just a difference of opinion, ie immensely long and argumentative threads. > >We rarely discuss items such as 3 because we mostly just adapt or new >people are unaware it used to be any different. Sometimes it's intriguing >or interesting. Occasionally a change in behaviour only happens to 1 >person and indicates weird things going wrong which all gets fixed by >renaming the User Profile. More usually it's a positive thing that a few >people find annoying but most people either don't care or find it an >improvement. (like when some obscure graphs got smoothed out in a better >way that gave better results and looked nicer (i think in 3.4.0)). > >Mostly what we get here is 4. A long running feature/thing suddenly stops >working in a new branch. We try renaming the User Profile jic it's that >(despite it seeming really unlikely) and post a bug-report only to find we >gets loads of aggro from devs telling us to fix it ourselves or that >individuals should pay to get it fixed. Sometimes it gets all bitter and >unnecessary blaming individuals who are all trying to do a good job but >that sometimes leads to unexpected complications "out in the wild". Maybe >we should post these as "feature request"s and pretend that it's new in >order to avoid hurting anyone's feelings? > >Very occasionally we get a real 5 but it's actually quite unusual, and >quite difficult to spot since everything else is also called by the same >name by most normal users. > >We seem to get a real 6 much more often than a real 5 but then it turns out >to be a Java or other 3rd party issue. We still quite often help fix it. >I think one time it turned out to be a wobbly graphics card and another >time a defective fan but usually it's just a case or trying a different >version of either Java or LibreOffice. > > >Unfortunately pretty much all those things can only be reported by posting >a bug-report. Feature requests use the bug-reporting systems. In that >system one of the drop-downs has an option labelled "feature request". We >can often help with most of them, especially 1 and 2 and even 6 but the >only route to escalate problems is to post a bug-report. I tried liaising >with other mailing lists to see if they could help with other issues but it >earned me a bad reputation so i wouldn't advise it! > > >Now is the ideal time to take the 4.4.0 for a test-drive. It's the number >1 time that the most devs are looking for problems in the new branch. It's >also THE best time to get stuff fixed. New stuff is still fresh in >people's minds so they might instinctively put their finger right on the >source of the problem even if the code seems fine to everyone else. > >So, please do take the 4.4.0 for a test-drive now and post bug-reports >about whatever you find (maybe ask here first maybe) even if it doesn't >really seem to be a bug and seems to fall into one of the other categories >i made-up on the spot there or some other not-quite-a-bug-really type >category. > >This is also a good time to join in with the QA team to help do routine >office type work to help make sure the different bugs are all neatly filed >and stuff so that the devs can focus on the coding rather than getting >bogged won with filing and routine stuff. >Regards from >Tom :) > very well said. +1 regards, som -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
