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I Will File Bugs for You (2014)

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Re: I Will File Bugs for You (2014)

#31

Post by claudius »

quadrature wrote: post #8
bcook wrote: post #5

I have always been ashamed that I rarely consider reporting a bug. Though, most of the time I assume that the "bug" is caused by my ignorance. I think this man's efforts should be applauded. :) Good luck!

I know you're probably refering to open source projects, but a lot of software doesn't even have ways to report bugs to send feedback.

Isn’t it usually considered your distribution’s responsibility to handle that? They may have done god-knows-what to the software, so the bug might not even appear in the upstream release.

Re: I Will File Bugs for You (2014)

#32

Post by rasz_pl »

bcook wrote: post #30
rasz_pl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://i.imgur.com/0c1fGpR.jpg

Holy crap! Do you really have ~100 browser tabs open?

Takes On a serious note its the morning rush, goes down to ~30 by noon. I dont let stuff control my timing (like TV used to), instead I open everything in the background and read/watch at my own pace through the day (between coding/soldering).

Re: I Will File Bugs for You (2014)

#33

Post by jakobegger »

robbrown451 wrote: post #20

I like this. Less so for his actual offer, but more because he is calling attention to how hard it is to do this for people who don't want to deal with a "bug tracking system... optimized for people who spend all day every day working with it". It would be nice if there was a single, easy to use site for mere mortals to enter bug reports (and others can comment on them, vote on them, process them, etc).....one sort o…

I think a much better way would be to just post a public email address for reporting bugs. That's what I'm doing for my (closed source) apps, and it works extremely well.

Even people with limited computer skills know how to use email. This ensures you get the maximum number of bug reports.

When you personally reply to emails (no automatic responses), people are extremely helpful. When I can't immediately reproduce a bug that a customer reported, I ask them a series of questions, and they almost always respond quickly. If you send clear instructions, you will get useful information even from people who have no clue what they are doing.

If you force people to fill out a lot of unnecessary info beforehand, you'll get less bug reports. If you send them automatic replies, they wont respond.

Re: I Will File Bugs for You (2014)

#34

Post by jakobegger »

Kalium wrote: post #28
robbrown451 wrote: post #20

I like this. Less so for his actual offer, but more because he is calling attention to how hard it is to do this for people who don't want to deal with a "bug tracking system... optimized for people who spend all day every day working with it". It would be nice if there was a single, easy to use site for mere mortals to enter bug reports (and others can comment on them, vote on them, process them, etc).....one sort o…

> It would be nice if there was a single, easy to use site for mere mortals to enter bug reports (and others can comment on them, vote on them, process them, etc).....one sort of like Github or StackOverflow, where we all sort of agree to use that site. Where they exist, they promptly get overwhelmed by all kinds of stupid shit. Then the devs have to filter through insane amounts of crap and sundry sorts of spam for…

In my experience the "stupid shit" and "crap you don't want" is often useful feedback. At the very least, it tells you which parts of your app are most confusing.

For example, if you get lots of complaints about something you consider obvious, maybe you should reconsider what's obvious. Often minor changes like improved docs or more googleable error messages can improve the experience for many users. And you'll see if changes are effective as soon as a specific sort of "crap" stops showing up in your bug reporting system.

Re: I Will File Bugs for You (2014)

#35

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

jakobegger wrote: post #33
robbrown451 wrote: post #20

I like this. Less so for his actual offer, but more because he is calling attention to how hard it is to do this for people who don't want to deal with a "bug tracking system... optimized for people who spend all day every day working with it". It would be nice if there was a single, easy to use site for mere mortals to enter bug reports (and others can comment on them, vote on them, process them, etc).....one sort o…

I think a much better way would be to just post a public email address for reporting bugs. That's what I'm doing for my (closed source) apps, and it works extremely well. Even people with limited computer skills know how to use email. This ensures you get the maximum number of bug reports. When you personally reply to emails (no automatic responses), people are extremely helpful. When I can't immediately reproduce a…

That works for small projects, but doesn't scale brilliantly. At some point, many projects need to handle more bug reports than one person can realistically handle in their spare time, and totally unstructured freeform text slows things down on top of that.

Re: I Will File Bugs for You (2014)

#36

Post by Hello71 »

jakobegger wrote: post #34
Kalium wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be nice if there was a single, easy to use site for mere mortals to enter bug reports (and others can comment on them, vote on them, process them, etc).....one sort of like Github or StackOverflow, where we all sort of agree to use that site. Where they exist, they promptly get overwhelmed by all kinds of stupid shit. Then the devs have to filter through insane amounts of crap and sundry sorts of spam for…

In my experience the "stupid shit" and "crap you don't want" is often useful feedback. At the very least, it tells you which parts of your app are most confusing. For example, if you get lots of complaints about something you consider obvious, maybe you should reconsider what's obvious. Often minor changes like improved docs or more googleable error messages can improve the experience for many users. And you'll see i…

Except when tons of emails come in that can't even coherently describe the part of the program that doesn't work or the approximate process they are attempting.

Re: I Will File Bugs for You (2014)

#38

Post by coderzach »

Hello71 wrote: post #36
jakobegger wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience the "stupid shit" and "crap you don't want" is often useful feedback. At the very least, it tells you which parts of your app are most confusing. For example, if you get lots of complaints about something you consider obvious, maybe you should reconsider what's obvious. Often minor changes like improved docs or more googleable error messages can improve the experience for many users. And you'll see i…

Except when tons of emails come in that can't even coherently describe the part of the program that doesn't work or the approximate process they are attempting.

"Hello I am developer in java how do I use library can you write me the code, thank you"

Re: I Will File Bugs for You (2014)

#39

Post by maxerickson »

jeffdavis wrote: post #27

Normally, I think of ways to increase involvement with OSS communities. He's helping people, and probably learning in the process, which is great. But it would be even better if he could add a touch of "help people help themselves"; otherwise I'm concerned that the OSS process will feel a little more sterile.

I think providing a lightweight action->result cycle is just as or more likely to engage people as a process that requires a deeper involvement before there is any chance of a result.

Re: I Will File Bugs for You (2014)

#40

Post by travisb »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #35
jakobegger wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a much better way would be to just post a public email address for reporting bugs. That's what I'm doing for my (closed source) apps, and it works extremely well. Even people with limited computer skills know how to use email. This ensures you get the maximum number of bug reports. When you personally reply to emails (no automatic responses), people are extremely helpful. When I can't immediately reproduce a…

That works for small projects, but doesn't scale brilliantly. At some point, many projects need to handle more bug reports than one person can realistically handle in their spare time, and totally unstructured freeform text slows things down on top of that.

If it becomes too much work for a single person then you just find a second person. When that becomes too much you can find an entire team of people, all contacted by a single email address. This is how customer support is done.

Everybody is more satisfied this way, users get quick feedback that their problem is being looked at, developers get enough information put into the bug tracker to be useful in fixing the issue and the number of useless bugs to wade through goes down immensely.

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