[FieldTrip] How are bugs triaged?

Schoffelen, J.M. (Jan Mathijs) jan.schoffelen at donders.ru.nl
Wed Jan 6 09:09:12 CET 2016


Hi Teresa,

Yes, one way of contributing would be to add snippets of code to the bug. In order to attract other people’s attention, you could add (judiciously) people to the CC-list of the bug. That way you ensure that these people receive an e-mail message once the bug is updated. Note, that people then can remove themselves again if they don’t like to be updated, which is a thing that needs to be respected. Note also, that adding a group e-mail address, such as fieldtrip-bugs at donders.ru.nl<mailto:fieldtrip-bugs at donders.ru.nl> is likely less efficient than adding named persons, because members of the group may feel less inclined to be actively involved if addressed as a group, rather than as an individual.

Best,
Jan-Mathijs



On Jan 5, 2016, at 6:39 PM, Teresa Madsen <tmadsen at emory.edu<mailto:tmadsen at emory.edu>> wrote:

Thanks for the insight, Jan-Mathijs.  I'm not exactly sure how to contribute...  I'm not familiar with SVN or GIT, and it would likely be small improvements that I would suggest, not whole new functions or anything.  So could I just post the applicable snippets of code as a comment on the bug report?  Will anyone see it there?  When I update a previously posted bug, I see this message:

Changes submitted for bug 2093<http://bugzilla.fieldtriptoolbox.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2093>

Email sent to:
no one
Excluding:
fieldtrip-bugs at donders.ru.nl<mailto:fieldtrip-bugs at donders.ru.nl>, braingirl at gmail.com<mailto:braingirl at gmail.com>
So I'm assuming no one knows.  Is there a way to send it back to the bug listserv?  Or should I really just learn how to use GIT<http://www.fieldtriptoolbox.org/development/git> (which seems more straightforward than SVN<http://www.fieldtriptoolbox.org/development/svn> - is that true?)?  ;-)

Thanks again,
Teresa


------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2016 08:27:18 +0000
From: "Schoffelen, J.M. (Jan Mathijs)" <jan.schoffelen at donders.ru.nl<mailto:jan.schoffelen at donders.ru.nl>>
To: FieldTrip discussion list <fieldtrip at science.ru.nl<mailto:fieldtrip at science.ru.nl>>
Subject: Re: [FieldTrip] How are bugs triaged?
Message-ID: <D4075AFA-F21B-44E6-8E7C-0799990BFE02 at fcdonders.ru.nl<mailto:D4075AFA-F21B-44E6-8E7C-0799990BFE02 at fcdonders.ru.nl>>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

Hi Teresa,

Generally, we don?t have an ?official? triage system for the bugs that are filed. The speed with which a bug is considered/resolved depends on a combination of things:

1) the quality of the bug report.
2) the perceived urgency by the people who would be able to resolve it.
3) the estimated cost-benefit relationship for the people who would be able to resolve it.
4) the amount of other piled-up work for the people who would be able to resolve it.
5) the level of serotonin.
6) the prospect of compensation in kind (beer/chocolate/formal involvement in projects etc).

Thus, in general, there may be things that the bug filer can do to increase the probability for consideration/resolution, including adding code snippets and data that allow for a reproduction of a genuine bug, or by including code snippets that implement a new feature. Note that in general feature requests that are not a priority for the daily scientific work of the development/fixing team will get a low priority.

In addition it should be noted that anybody who is on the list is allowed to contribute fixes/patches/features, and that it is not the responsibility of the core development team (which nowadays extends far beyond the people at the Donders Centre). Also, it should be noted that  nobody has a formal requirement to provide fieldtrip/bugzilla support, it?s all pro bono.
This means that we have to squeeze it in besides our daily scientific work and additional chores.

Anyway, the problem is that we are just short-handed, which indeed sometimes results in bugs already being ?open? for a long time. Our oldest one still open dates from 2010, so the 2013 you mention is not that bad :o). With regard to the NEX file reader error you mentioned, if you think your workaround might be of benefit of other users, don?t hesitate to contribute!

Best wishes,
Jan-Mathijs




On Jan 4, 2016, at 9:29 PM, Teresa Madsen <tmadsen at emory.edu<mailto:tmadsen at emory.edu><mailto:tmadsen at emory.edu<mailto:tmadsen at emory.edu>>> wrote:

I'm just curious because I've gotten such quick responses and fixes on some bugs, while others sit around for long periods of time without any feedback.  Luckily, they're not anything stopping me from doing my work, but I was just curious if they've been seen and determined to be of low priority, or simply overlooked.

Examples:
http://bugzilla.fieldtriptoolbox.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2978 - "Plot Trial" button on GUI for ft_rejectvisual (summary mode) plots average of all trials instead of the single trial requested - first posted in October
http://bugzilla.fieldtriptoolbox.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2093 - NEX file reader errors - posted in 2013 - Obviously, I've worked around it, but it's still there with a status of "new"!

Hope I'm not being a pest.
Thanks,
Teresa

--
Teresa E. Madsen, PhD
Division of Behavioral Neuroscience and Psychiatric Disorders
Yerkes National Primate Research Center
Emory University
Rainnie Lab, NSB 5233
954 Gatewood Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA 30329
(770) 296-9119<tel:%28770%29%20296-9119>
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End of fieldtrip Digest, Vol 62, Issue 4
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--
Teresa E. Madsen, PhD
Division of Behavioral Neuroscience and Psychiatric Disorders
Yerkes National Primate Research Center
Emory University
Rainnie Lab, NSB 5233
954 Gatewood Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA 30329
(770) 296-9119
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