Peace Jerome <peace_the_dreamer at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Are what the janitors are doing, what needs to be
> done?
> 
> The janitors are doing work that is useful and is that
> the work that needs to get done to fix bugs and have a
> better squeak?
<snip>
> When I first saw the janitor project I thought is
> would be one I could join and add my bug fixing skill
> to. But as I looked at the early stuff from the list I
> realized this wasn't what the janitors intended to be.

Janitors make sure that the people who need to hear about bugs, well,
hear about the bugs. In other words, if you I find a bug in, say,
Scamper, and send a bug report to the list, one of the janitors looks
at the bug, tries to reproduce it, contacts me if there's a problem
trying to reproduce the bug. If it turns out the bug's not a bug at
all, the janitor closes the report (making sure I, the reporter, know
it's closed). If the janitor can reprodce the bug, he or she adds it
to Mantis and contacts the maintainer/s of the affected package (in
our example, the Scamper maintainer/s).

I (as a Janitor bystander) had made the same mistake, thinking of
Janitors as sweeping up the first & whatnot. Ken corrected me (I hope
you don't mind me quoting you, Ken?), saying this:

"I don't agree with this.  My goal for this team has nothing to do with
fixing bugs or reviewing or any of that stuff.  It is simply to get bug
reports and fixes from those that have them to those that want them and
can make use of them.  A sorting function with some filtering included."

In the longer term, the Janitors aim to make the process of Harvesting
as easy as possible. That's not the same as actually harvesting!
> Quite frankly, My perception is the janitors will
> generate a lot of noise and result in very little of
> the actual problems being solved. It will obscure the
> fact that what is needed is problem solvers and bug
> fixers and not just text processors.

Too many bug reports languish in obscurity amongst the ~70 posts a day
this list usually generates. We have a central bug database, Mantis,
but right now you can't just hit "mail out a bug report" off your
Debugger, say, and have it appear in Mantis. How do these bugs
actually end up in Mantis? The Janitors. Who makes sure that bugs
aren't re-reported, that they're reproducable (i.e., actual bugs and
not the result of someone toasting their image), etc? The Janitors.

Yes, they do produce a number of mails per bug report to the list (at
least two: the [caught] and the [closed] mails). That's temporary,
until we figure out the proper way for people to report bugs easily.

> Right now most of my bug reports sit on mantis
> unperused and unacknowledged. Often the resolution is
> to leave them open. Sometimes if the fix is small
> enough (cause the problem is small) somebody will
> grasp that this can be added to squeak and it is. But
> the bigger problem is making a better squeak.

I think (being somewhat in this position) that if your fix is easy,
small, etc., then mail someone you think is in charge. For external
packages, that's easy: look up on SqueakMap for the maintainer. For
in-image stuff (like Morphic) try mailing one of the noisier Morphic
gurus and ask them to take a look at your fix.

> There is a need for recruiting the people who will
> take the bug reports and turn them in to fixes that
> can be committed to squeak. I am not in a position
> from where I sit to see how that will be done.

I agree. And once we have those fixes, we need a group of people who
can take those fixes and push them to the update stream. (Again, the
external package fixes are easier: nag the maintainer of the
package). Right now, I don't even know who can update the stream, for
instance. I'm sure these issues have been exhaustively discussed
before on the list.

frank


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