Re: Bugfix Releases

El Mié 23 Abr 2003 19:22, Jon Wood escribió: .. > >I have to say that I'm seriously considering giving PEAR a miss for > >future projects. > > [...snip...] > > >I've found serious bugs in most modules excluding DB and PEAR, which > >forces me to retain two copies of PEAR - one 'real', the other my > >'patched' version. > > > >This, to mind is just not good practice. > > And I'd agree with that... I know it's a bit of extra work, but is it > possible for more people to backport small bugfixes to the released > versions of their packages, and then make a bugfix release. > > Making a small release (minus the actual coding) takes 5-10 minutes, and > upgrading takes even less time, so why aren't people doing it? It's all > very well saying "Fixed in CVS" but most people then have to take the > CVS version and install it somewhere else, because they don't have write > access to the PEAR files. Coincidentaly, 10 minutes ago I finished answering a mail from a user who was complaining about a couple of bugs in my package. They weren't diffcult to fix, yet he seems to have been very frustrated because they kept preventing him from making any real use of the package. My first answer was: well, why didn't you say so before? I realize it's not the same problem you are describing, but I think it's related. There are just 45 reported bugs for pear in bugs.php.net and I think that figure is not even close to the real one. So, why do users not report bugs? Even if they do and the developer doesn't want/can't fix them (for whatever reason), why not report them at bugs.php.net where they'll have more visibility? If this is just a disinformation problem we could just add a link on every package's page at pear.php.net saying: "please report bugs <a href="http://bugs.php.net/">here</a>". We could add a "latest cvs activity" list showing all cvs logs since the latest release so people can check easily if the bug they are experiencing has already been fixed in cvs, and maybe even dare to send a mail to a developer saying: "I just noticed you have fixed problem X in cvs 10 months ago, and I was wondering when are you planning on making a new realease". I can't speak for everybody here, but I know I wouldn't mind being asked. Xavier