Re: Bug Tracking

[Rob Mahurin]

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 10:25:53AM -0700, Rik wrote:
> 
> > From:
> > Rob Mahurin <address@hidden>
> > I have just done this successfully:
> >     https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?29354
> > 
> Rob,
> 
> I like this.  To be most useful I think it should also include the
> information about the user's environment that bug_report currently
> collects.  Can your urlwrite script also attach this information as a file?

The file attachments are the fields named input_file1, etc. and data
from a file can be added to the parameters list there.  I think that
<input type="file"> in the form HTML is just a hint to the browser to
look for a file, and the actual data in the POST request can come from
anywhere.

In the current implementation, the work of collecting the environment
and compile options and sending the mail is done by octave-bug (source
in the top of the dev tree).  When I suggested urlwrite I thought more
of the logic was within Octave.  This isn't a fatal flaw, since
octave-bug could be linked against libcurl and still submit
automatically.  

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 01:39:44PM -0400, John W. Eaton wrote:
> 
> I like the concept, but I'm not sure about implementing it because it
> seems fragile to me.  For example, the bug reporting script will break
> if the bug tracker on savannah changes, and we don't really have much
> control over what changes are made to savannah.  Even if we did,
> linking the bug reporting script too closely with the current tracker
> means that it is difficult to switch in the future.  So unless someone
> has a good way to decouple the reporting script and tracker, I think
> the best solution is to just display the information that should be
> reported in the tracker and ask the user to submit the report.

Currently the logic in octave-bug seems to be to collect the
information, try to send it, and prompt the user to send manually if
the automatic send fails.  It'd be nice to keep this logic.

I agree that submitting HTTP requests to the savannah tracker poses a
maintenance burden.  I don't know how heavy that burden actually is:
how often does the tracker change? is there notice to the projects?
what do other users of the savannah bug tracker do?  I haven't yet
found documentation that answers these questions.

Cheers,
Rob