PureBasic Forums - English

Hi PB team,

In my opinion, the project "purebasic" has arrived a status, where a bug tracker could be reasonable.
Because of the amount of bug postings, you could get the best overview as possible with a bug tracker software.

There are considerable advantages.
In example...

* multiple posting of the same bug isn't possible.
* users can see already posted bugs.
* users can see the progress of bug fixing.
* the developers has the totaly overview.
* bugs can be assigned to specified colleagues.
* bug managing by version
* you could make dependent the tracker access to the download accounts.

More about such softwares, here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_tracker

Best regards

Wolf

I would welcome that, too

Great idea.

I have been thinking about this a lot and while there are a number of positive points,
the main reason why i think it is not good (atleast for now) is that i think
that the participation from the users in the bug hunting process would decrease
if we move the bug handling out of the forum.

Right now when somebody posts a bug, somebody else who visits the forum (maybe not specifically looking for bug posts)
may see it, try the example code himself and give some extra input which is often helpful.
If the bug tracking is a separate site, only people specifically looking for bugreports will
visit it, which will be a lot less than visit the forum i think.


Besides, some of the points can be done here in the forum quite well too:

> * multiple posting of the same bug isn't possible.

Thats not true actually. If you look at the bugtrackers of larger OpenSource projects, you often
see bug replies such as "same as bug #xxxxx". The problem exists there as well.
If people do not look if their bugs were already posted, not even a good bugtracker
can stop them from starting a new, almost identical report.

That said, i don't think we have this problem much here. Generally double-posts
do not happen that much, so it is not really a big issue for me.

> * users can see already posted bugs.

Well, they can do that in the forum as well. I agree though that a bugtracker
offers a better method of archiving fixed reports. The forum is not the best way in this respect.

> * users can see the progress of bug fixing.

We started doing the [Done] in the title recently for both the users and our information.

A bugtracker offers a more detailed progress view there ("open", "assigned to...", "fixed", "closed" etc),
but since we are only 2 main developpers, i do not think we would use this much anyway.
What i do miss though is the ability to assign priorities to a bug.

> * the developers has the totaly overview.

This is true, although i think we get on with the forum solution quite well so far.

> * bugs can be assigned to specified colleagues.

This is a very useful feature for larger teams but as i said above, with only two
main developpers, its not really needed.

> * bug managing by version

Good point.

> * you could make dependent the tracker access to the download accounts.

We probably wouldn't do that anyway. Why deny somebody who wants to help
with a bugreport the access just because he has a demo only?


So you see i agree that there are benefits, but atleast for the moment i think
they do not outweigh the costs.

freak wrote:Right now when somebody posts a bug, somebody else who visits the forum (maybe not specifically looking for bug posts)
may see it, try the example code himself and give some extra input which is often helpful.
If the bug tracking is a separate site, only people specifically looking for bugreports will
visit it, which will be a lot less than visit the forum i think.

Quite possible, but...

freak wrote:I have been thinking about this a lot and while there are a number of positive points,
the main reason why i think it is not good (atleast for now) is that i think
that the participation from the users in the bug hunting process would decrease
if we move the bug handling out of the forum.

This is the problem with the _current_ system! What about the users
that don't participate in the forums? Are they just not active enough
to receive support by you? I think no

The solution is quite easy. A programmer that doesn't want to go
through all the forums (yes, there is a german/french bug section )
won't benefit at all as it is now. If he would have a central place to
look for bug reports (and this is about the only thing a programmer
is interested in, if he just wants to program) he would check that
place first.
And now the real benefit: You could (and actually should since a long
time) add a bug reporting / searching function into the IDE. Somebody
who is new to PB first doesn't know where to report bugs, so he will
eventually e-mail Fred directly... again, who can see this bug report?

You can think of more reasons why integrating this bug handling
featuren in the IDE in combination with a bug tracker is superior to
the forums way.

I say: move the bug system into the IDE in combination with a bug
tracker as a central place and you should even get more active bug
hunters that were just afraid of posting in the forums

Another point is the maintenance of the bug tracker: it takes time. You have to keep it uptodate, have a server to host it, etc. For now, the actual way seems quite ok to me and the major good point is the other users input who can help to test/find solutions.

Fred wrote:Another point is the maintenance of the bug tracker: it takes time. You have to keep it uptodate, have a server to host it, etc.

Well, you have to keep the bugs forum up to date, too...

Fred wrote:For now, the actual way seems quite ok to me and the major good point is the other users input who can help to test/find solutions.

Why do you think this wouldn't be possible with a bug tracker?

Ok, whatever, I see you don't want to and we have to live with it.

remi_meier wrote:

Fred wrote:Another point is the maintenance of the bug tracker: it takes time. You have to keep it uptodate, have a server to host it, etc.

Well, you have to keep the bugs forum up to date, too...

You don't get the point, a bug tracker is a different piece of software.

remi_meier wrote:

Fred wrote:For now, the actual way seems quite ok to me and the major good point is the other users input who can help to test/find solutions.

Why do you think this wouldn't be possible with a bug tracker?

I think the forums users won't bother going to another place just to see the bug reported.

remi_meier wrote: Ok, whatever, I see you don't want to and we have to live with it.

Well.

Would be fun to go on like this, but I'll stop here.

Just wanted to tell you that I did get the point even last time. And I
won't repeat my points.

Bugreporting through the IDE is not such a bad idea. Maybe for a future version.

freak wrote:Bugreporting through the IDE is not such a bad idea. Maybe for a future version.

And a searchfunction to the forum (from the helpfile), like in vs and others

Fred wrote:Another point is the maintenance of the bug tracker: it takes time. You have to keep it uptodate, have a server to host it, etc.

If webspace is the main reason, I would offer you enough webspace as charitable donation for a life time.


Best regards

Wolf

I got a nice suggestion, use phpBB3

It has very nice sub-forum handling.

Simply leave the forum as it is (and use phpBB3) but add sub forums under bugs for the versions pf PureBasic.
There are also some other advanced features of phpBB3 I haven't looked that much into, like some form of rating I believe, tagging, and other stuff, that might make the current solution much easier to maintain.

Considering that this forum seems to not have any mods, an upgrade to phpBB3 should not be that much of a headache I hope.

Wouldn't it be possible to integrate the bug tracker into the form, so that when you click the new thread button in the bug reports subforum, you're redirected to a special form where you enter more detailed environment informations (OS, PB version, etc...), so the thread titles would be more consistent...

I got a nice suggestion, use phpBB3

This would be a good idea in any event. I moved to phpBB3 from v2 and it was painless. V3 is a great forum system.

I wonder if this is available somewhere:
http://www.phpbb.com/bugs/phpbb3/tickets.php

Edit: There is a bug tracker for phpBB3 here:
http://mods.flying-bits.org/

Edit 2: Just installed the above bug-tracker on my forum:
http://elementaryreports.com/phpbb3/

It's the bug-tracker link near the members and logout buttons at the top-right of the forum website.