Bug report: the other side

[Andrew Farris]

John Summerfield wrote:
> Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:
>> While I worked with supply of info requested from me,  I included a 
>> question
>> of the opinion from the person working on the case.  Haven't received 
>> anything
>> yet,  but pass the question here, as I got the impression that some of 
>> you
>> have spent some time on the other side of the desk.
>>
>> Perhaps some would be willing to write a few words about how that is.
>> It probably difficult, as - like in my own case - the better info I 
>> supply, the
>> easier it will be for the person handling the case. 

> Remember you have the only eyes on the problem. It's really important 
> you try to solve the problem yourself. If I can't see that you have 
> tried, I will still ignore you. Unless your subject line looks like 
> something interesting to me, and over time the number of fresh new 
> problems has diminished somewhat.

I think this is a really important point.  Better information supplied at the 
first attempt can make a very big difference, and its well worth the extra 5 
minutes it could take to gather a few details.

When you send an email to a list, post a bug report, or post to a forum, there 
is significant lag time before someone able to help solve the issue even sees 
the post.  If they need to ask a simple question right away, that really impacts 
things.  If you include what info you can find out by yourself, the real 
solution to the problem may be the first feedback you get, ultimately saving you 
AND the others on the list time.

Anything that you can add to a bug report should be added, even if you think it 
is probably not very useful.  Backtraces, error output, versions of packages 
(both for the package with the bug and other packages it depends on, has extra 
features from, etc).  For instance reporting a bug with a sound player, the 
report should include the kernel, audio subsystem (pulse, oss, arts), and other 
major libraries (gstreamer, mono, the decode library in use).

I'm certainly guilty of reporting bugs with half the info I just suggested.. but 
reporting them does take a very real effort.  Sometimes its better to report one 
or two bugs as well as possible than it is to report the 10-20 bugs you just 
noticed with useless, unsolvable reports that will sit as NEW for a year.

-- 
Andrew Farris <lordmorgul at gmail.com> www.lordmorgul.net
  gpg 0xC99B1DF3 fingerprint CDEC 6FAD BA27 40DF 707E A2E0 F0F6 E622 C99B 1DF3
No one now has, and no one will ever again get, the big picture. - Daniel Geer
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