From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eric S. Raymond" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Why Emacs needs a modern bug tracker Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 09:57:43 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20080105145743.GH30869@thyrsus.com> References: <20080104164454.0A4BD830697@snark.thyrsus.com> <20080104232514.GB2735@muc.de> <20080105052007.GA27075@thyrsus.com> <20080105111720.GA3014@muc.de> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1199545055 32699 80.91.229.12 (5 Jan 2008 14:57:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 14:57:35 +0000 (UTC) Cc: "Eric S. Raymond" , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Alan Mackenzie Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jan 05 15:57:56 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1JBATD-0001Qn-73 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:57:55 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JBASq-0001kA-Nr for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:57:32 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JBASm-0001jq-PS for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:57:28 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JBASl-0001jS-U4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:57:28 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JBASl-0001jP-RA for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:57:27 -0500 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5] helo=snark.thyrsus.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JBASl-0001Dq-I4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 05 Jan 2008 09:57:27 -0500 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 23) id 1B53A41C316; Sat, 5 Jan 2008 09:57:43 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20080105111720.GA3014@muc.de> X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.15+20070412 (2007-04-11) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:86169 Archived-At: Alan Mackenzie : > > There's emacs-bug to be hacked. And one of our listmembers has > > already noted that the Debian tracker can be driven by email. > > What is "emacs-bug"? I think I'm missing some context somewhere. Perhaps I have the name wrong, but I believe there is an Emacs mode specifically for generating bug reports to be mailed in. I think I used it once. > The best (proprietary) bug tracker I ever used had fields only for things > like person creating the entry, status (open/fixed/rejected), customer, > severity, urgency. Then it had free text areas for describing the bug. That's about where the Wesnoth and Ubuntu trackers are. The Wesnoth one does have a "platform" field for specifying your OS, but that's reasonable given that we do both Mac and Windows ports. > Fair response. ;-) But the base system has to be one that allows > appropriate access. This is *not difficult*. There's not even any need to postulate other than HTTP access to do it, because we have w3m. If all else fails, we write a mode that uses w3m to presents a bug-entry or query form and then does a transaction with the bug-tracker CGI. I'll bet either you or I could throw that together in a few hours' work. > I wasn't very clear, there. Of course users need web forms, and they > will manipulate the database directly. But why can't we have VCS > updating, too? This will allow RMS and others to work offline, a very > desirable thing. A VCS-based solution would be more complicated than necessary. Easier just to write a w3m-based client that pulls a copy of the entire bug database out of the tracker. -- Eric S. Raymond