Hi Stefan & other bug tracking friends & foes!

I wrote:
>I don't really care what is used on the back end, to hold onto the problem 
>reports, but I do think that users should be able to get at them from 
>Squeak, if Squeak is on-line.  If Squeak is off-line, it should know how 
>to generate files that represent bug reports that can be uploaded to the 
>bug repository.

Stefan Aust replied:
I don't think that this is really required.  Squeak is just one tool among 
a set of specialized tools and I'll personally probably always prefer IE5.5 
over Scamper.

Well, I wasn't really clear on why I think that this is important; there are
so many good reasons...  Hmmm.  I suppose that the number one reason why I
think that this is important is that if the bugs can be reported directly
from Squeak, people will be more inclined to report them and to submit them
(rather than just fix, or ignore, and forget them).  Another good reason is
that Squeak could pre-fill the bug form with lots of vital, but
oft-repeated, information (like what is the image version, last update
number, VM version, platform, available RAM, author, recent stack trace,
etc.).  Pre-filling bug reports with this kind of information might go a
long way towards cutting back on the implicit overhead that Lex Spoon
referred to in this discussion thread.

Bugs need ID's too, so that they can be tracked.  If a bug report's ID were
generated from the image, the "next available id number" for that person
would automatically get generated, etc.  There are lots of good reasons for
having Squeak involved in the production of bug reports.

But, you could also argue that Squeak should just "assist" in the process.
A standard "dump" of system information could be performed from within
Squeak, and then that information could be used by a 3rd party application
to pre-fill the bug report.

I will definitely type up that list of suggestions, but it may be a day or
two before you see them.  I've got to attend to some other matters this
evening.

Cheers & good evening all,

---==> Chris