stability

[Walter Bright]

John Reimer wrote:
> In the case of gcc, the other way to look at the bug count (4265) is to 
> realize that the number is the combined sum of four front ends (C, C++, 
> Objective C, GNAT) and two processor IS targets (32 bit and 64 bit).  At 
> least that is what I gathered from the link. So I think it's just a 
> little unfair to compare dmd's bug count directly to gcc's, although I 
> understand the point you were trying to make. :)

Bug count is an uninformative measure of quality anyway. For example, if 
feature A is not implemented, that's a bug. But if A is implemented, yet 
has a couple obscure problems with it, one bug has been replaced by two. 
Does that mean the quality has gone down?

As soon as someone starts using the bug count as a measure of quality, 
people start "working" the bug count, and several things start happening:

1) people avoid putting bugs into the database
2) people argue about whether bug 114 is really one bug or 3 separate bugs
3) people argue about whether bug 543 is a bug or an enhancement
4) people will log a bunch of trivial bugs, then immediately 'fix' them, 
so they look like they're doing impressive work
5) people won't work on the hard bugs, because no matter how much time 
it takes to fix it, it will only count as "1" fix, and the other guy who 
fixed 3 typos gets credit for "3" fixes.

All of this is counterproductive. I've seen it happen in one company 
that put a giant paper graph on the wall with the bug count logged 
daily. The fights got progressively more acrimonious to the point where 
management finally wised up and stopped grading programmers on the bug 
count before total meltdown ensued.

I had another experience where I once published the outstanding bug list 
on the C++ compiler as a service to the users of it. One lazy journalist 
then did a comparative compiler review, and his review of my compiler 
consisted of little more than a cut&paste of the bug list. I never did 
that again.

These sorts of things is what made me very reluctant to use bugzilla for 
D. Fortunately, these days people seem to have moved past naive bug counts.