stability

[Bill Baxter]

Walter Bright wrote:
> 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 has a couple obscure problems with it, one bug has been replaced by two.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.

It's little better I think if you assign points to bugs based on their 
estimated difficulty of fixing and relative significance.

Inkscape folks were doing that with their last release.  Maybe that's 
something that's built into launchpad?

Still, in a corporate setting I can see there being issues even with a 
points system.  Who decides how many points it's worth, what if a bug 
turns out to be harder than anticipated, somebody could still try to 
file and close a million trivial bugs to game the system.  But in an 
environment where people actually care about the software they're 
creating, and not all just trying to get promoted, I think points for 
bugs can be a useful motivator.

--bb