On Fri, 6 Dec 2002, Lex Spoon wrote:

> Bijan Parsia <bparsia at email.unc.edu> wrote:
>
> > I started doing a few of these things but then realized that I had No Good
> > Place To Put Them. I could, of course, do the old go out and find the
> > right web page, contact someone, send [BUG]s and [FIX]s and set up a Swiki
> > page...ugh. No! I'm feeling lazy. I want *SqueakMap* to do this for me.
> > SqueakMap is *magic*...it can fix *anything*.
> >
>
> This is one thing a bug database is good for.

Maybe.

>  One of the things I
> really enjoy about Debian is that each package gets its own bug tracking
> area.

Right, but I wanted something more than a bug db. Enhancments, docs, and
goodies, related packages, tools, etc.

I recognize that these are somewhat different and could have some
optimiality achieved with specific tools...but I don't care all that much
about optimality as opposed to integration :)

>  Each bug has an email thread associated with it, and each bug has
> a status (open, fixed, re-assigned to another package, ...), and each
> bug has various flags such as enhancement vs. wishlist, patch included,
> etc.  Go browse around bug.debian.org to see what it looks like.

And we have sqfixes, which gives each bug report, fix, ann, enchance a web
page (and download spot). Perfect for squeakmapization :)

[snip]

> The alternative of simulating a bug database using subcategories sounds
> pretty hackish,

No it doesn't. You're ears just need cleaning :) It was more of a UI issue
than anything. Subcategories just seemed convenient but I didn't reckon on
everyone's obsession with perserving their essenital bodily fluids :)

> when one consideres that there is a very functional and
> well thought-out solution that shouldn't need any special tweaking to
> get started.

er...this will integrated with SqueakMap without any special tweaking?

>  Down the road, we might want to add a Squeak-based
> interface to the database, but WWW and email should be okay for getting
> started.

Which completely defeats my point. We already *have* bug tracking, albeit
primative, via the mailing list. That's the wrong point of action for me.
Either for submission or for retrieval.

> Now, if someone knows a better bug database, that is fine as well.  For
> example, maybe we could swipe the SourceForge database.  But I'm pretty
> sure the Debian one would be a drop-in solution for what we need.

Hardly drop in. We'd have to change a bunch of things about how we
currently report bugs. And integrate it somehow with SqueakMap. Which is
fine, but hardly a "Oh well, drop it in" situation. Unless I'm missing
something.

Plus, as I said above and will say again, right now, here, once more, it's
more than just bugs and fixes and enhs and goodies and docs. Well, not a
lot more, but certain more than BUGs and FIXes. Somethings are full
fledged packages.  Somethings make best sense in relation to a package.
That's it. Some of these related things have natural groupings. These
groups are pretty standard across packages. Sounds like categories and
subcategories to me. I'm happy to preserve the purity of SMCategories, I
guess, though I don't quite see why it's necessary. And I'm happy to use a
standard bug database, even if it means, as it does, changing everything
that we currently use for bug tracking. But it would still be desirable to
integrate it into SqueakMap.

Cheers,
Bijan "Grumpy About His Idea Being Heard As 'Pretty Hackish'" Parsia.