[PLUG] Joe Jobbed

Ronald Chmara ron at Opus1.COM
Thu Oct 11 05:43:21 UTC 2007


On Oct 10, 2007, at 9:33 PM, Brent Rieck wrote:
> Ronald Chmara wrote:
>> So yes, thousands of patches in some cases, 1 patch in other cases.
> Do you mean something like the following fictitious situation: I  
> develop
> version 1.0 of a program, and it has (say) 5 known bugs and 10  
> features.
>   I keep developing and release version 1.1 of the same program which
> fixes the 5 v1.0 bugs and add 3 more features but while developing I
> make 100 mistakes -- which I fix -- along the way before releasing
> v1.1.. it sounds to me like you would consider v1.1 of the program to
> have 105 fewer bugs then v1.0.  Did I parse your email correctly?

Pretty close, but not the whole picture. Let me tell you about snaps,  
and the php bug life cycle. (Others reading this can point and laugh.)

snaps.php.net is where live "code updates" happen. So, say we've  
released 9.0.

Lets say that on monday, a bug report (by somebody named Tom) is  
filed that calling the internal function foo_bar(1.9127) segfaults.

A developer  comes along, sees that foo_bar() handles floats poorly,  
and changes the code for foo_bar() to handle it. The end user  
downloads this "current version" of 9.0 from snaps, and is happy.

On tuesday, *another* bug report is filed (by somebody named Harry),  
because foo_baz(1.681) segfaults (not foo_bar()).

Another developer  comes along, sees that all of the foo_*() library  
handles floats poorly, and changes massive amounts of code for foo_* 
() to handle it. Harry downloads this *newer* "current version" of  
9.0 from snaps, and is happy.

So: User Tom has one "fixed" version of 9.0 code. User Harry has  
another "fixed" version of 9.0 code.

On wednesday, version 9.1 (with all current fixes) is released. User  
Tom sees massive changes, User Harry sees no changes.

On thursday a developer adds a new bar_*() extension to the 9.1  
development tree.

User Dick needs this extension, badly, and over the course of a few  
weeks, downloads snaps, works with the developer, filing bug reports  
every few days, grabbing snaps, and in the course of things,  100  
changes are made.

9.2 is released. And Tom doesn't care about them. Neither does  
Harry.... but Dick sees 100 changes, over time, that matter to *him*  
between 9.1 and 9.2. The release notes merely say "added bar  
functions", and 100 changes show up in the code base.


-Bop




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