UDS Prep: Making it easier to fix bugs

[Bryce Harrington]

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 03:42:59PM +0200, Daniel Holbach wrote:
> Hello everybody,
> 
> at UDS I'd like to discuss how we can make it easier to fix bugs,
> especially for new contributors.
> 
> 
> I documented the steps that are necessary at
> 
> 	http://people.canonical.com/~dholbach/Fixing%20a%20bug.png
> 
> A little legend:
> 
>    (?)		Decisions that are hard to make
>    (i)		Information that is hard to find
>    (hourglass)	Waiting that is necessary
>    (people)	You need to know which people to 'talk to'
> 
> 
> We all know the steps that are necessary and why they are. They are all
> documented (somewhere on the wiki). Sometimes there's different choices
> along the way, sometimes steps are mandatory, sometimes optional,
> depending on the case and who you talk to.
> 
> When I looked at the resulting diagram I realised how incredibly hard it
> is for new contributors to just "do the right thing".
> 
> What can we do to make this easier?
> 
> (If there's a mistake in the diagram or something missing, please let me
> know and I'll fix it.)

There is a missing 'Analysis' between steps 2 and 3.

> Thanks for your feedback in advance.

You're right that the second half of the tree especially is very
process-heavy and likely intimidating for new contributors.  However,
once you have experience as a package maintainer the work is reasonably
straightforward.

But the majority of our bug reports are blocked at earlier steps in the
tree, so that is probably where even modest improvements would pay off
the most.

Bryce