to raise a exception isn't a bug

[Dotan Cohen]

2009/6/21 Markus Schönhaber <ubuntu-users at list-post.mks-mail.de>:
> Dotan Cohen:
>
>> The why was I, as a user, presented with a big dialogue box over my
>> entire screen that told me of this exception?
>
> Because of a bug. But not because python-apt raised an exception.
>
>> The problem is that the
>> user sees this dialogue, no matter where the programming error lies.
>
> It's understandable that you, as an end user, want this bug to go away,
> and that you don't care about the technical details that caused the bug.
> The devs, OTOH, have to decide what to do - and *where* - to actually
> make it go away. The bug report is filed against two packages:
> python-apt and install-package. And although somewhere in python-apt the
> exception you've seen is raised, it's install-package's fault not to
> have handled it but shown it in big friendly letters on your screen.
> In other words: python-apt did what it's supposed to do, notify
> install-package of an error condition by raising an exception. Therefore
> it is not to blame but the bug report is invalid wrt python-apt.
> Rather install-package is to blame for not having handled the error
> condition about which it was notified by python-apt. So, the bug report
> is valid wrt install-package. And for install-package a fix was
> released. Provided the fix works as it's supposed to, you'll never see
> the exception again, although nothing was changed in python-apt.
>

I see thanks. Actually, I did understand this to be the case but I was
unsure if anything had been changed for the end user.


> To me it seems, this whole discussion is caused by the fact that the end
> user's point of view and the developer's point of view might be
> significantly different.
> Florian's "to raise a exception isn't a bug" when marking the bug
> against python-apt as invalid may sound snappy at first sight -
> especially to an end user. But if you think about it, it's not snappy
> but simply (technically) correct.
>

That's what is most important. I trust the devs. Thanks!


-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il