[Zope-Coders] Collector Status Meanings

[Chris Withers]

(apologies for "going cold" on this, "work" intervened :-S)

Ken Manheimer wrote:
> Not right.  An issue may have been processed to hell and back and then
> wound up back in pending - eg, someone may have taken responsibility for
> it and then realized they couldn't do it, and found noone else to assign 
> to it. 

Ah okay, yeah, good point. How does it look now?

I have to say though, a lot of the time you see issues which were 
assigned ages (months to years ago) and have had no further action 
since. Is that an acceptable position for an issue to be in?

>>>  Accepted: Issues that some supporter(s) has responsibility for resolving
>>>            it, and it is not yet resolved.
> 
> See my message to fred.  The essential thing, as far as i'm concerned, is 
> that acceptance fundamentally entails having someone responsible for the 
> issue.  Your framing obscures this. 

How about now? I don't think I've changed anything but it doesn't seem 
obscure to me: "Accepted issues will have an assigned supporter"
The problem with responsibility is that currently, anyone who can accept 
an issue can ssign it to someone whether they want it assigned to them 
or not, this means the assigned person HASN'T necessarily accepted 
responsibility... I think the current wording is clear, please explain 
what doesn't spear to be :-)

>>>  Rejected: Issues that are settled as being somehow invalid or outside 
>>>            the scope of the system the collector serves.
>>
>>I think we agree here too...
> 
> I would rephrase it, but include the additional exposition.

Sorry, what additional exposition? How would you rephrase it?

>>>  Resolved: Issues that are settled as having been solved.
>>
>>Indeed. But issues are rejected unless they require chanes to the Zope 
>>core. My notes are meant to ensure people put in appropriate messages 
>>when the yresolve issues.
> 
> Maybe i should have said "Relevant issues that are settled...".

I'm still missing the salient point here, can you explain for the 
hard-or-understanding?

> As i mentioned in my response to fred, the alternative is either to leave 
> it pending, where it can obscure other truly pending issues,

What's the difference between a "truly pending" issue and a "pending 
through no action" item?

> or mark it as 
> accepted without a responsible party, which i think can nullify the 
> usefulness of the collector.

Well, this would have the meaning people are looking for from Deferred.
I personally agree with you that Accepted should mean someone has signed 
up to do the work.

> I agree with chris, deferred can languish, 
> but at least there's a clue about that danger.

What's the clue? It happens on every single issue tracking system I've 
used which has something akin to a deferred state ;-)

> I can see keeping things in pending if they need doing and are awaiting 
> someone available to take responsibility, and putting things in deferred 
> that either aren't so needed but would be worth doing, provided resource 
> availability, or are awaiting further input.  

Well, we need a new state then ;-) But I'll add something about that 
later ;-)

 > I would rather not see
> pending cluttered with either of those.

I would rather see issues dealt with rather than swept under a carpet a 
carpet or dumped into an oubliet. Deferred was both of those things, 
Wontfix is a definite: nothing happens here unless someone picks it up.

How about another state: NeedsResource, for what you're currently 
wanting Deferred for?

> Deferred doesn't preclude using it for that. 

Yes, but having lots of crap in that state which doesn't have a death 
penalty over it does...

> Ideally, the collector would
> have provide some "revisit" date (maybe it would promote the issue back to
> pending on that date).

How likely is this to happen? I'd assert it as unlikely, and so I'd like 
to use the states as we did at the last bug day...

>>I'd prefer to have long-standing pending issues rather than forgotten 
>>wontfix'ers...
> 
> I think you mean "forgotten deferred's".  And obviously, i don't agree 
> about the abuse of deferred.

Nope, I mean if we use Wontfix as you describe, it becomes a deferred 
bin. I'd prefer wontfix to be a bin that people delve into when they've 
just out of paint to watch dry ;-)

Anyway, just to summarive:

I really truly positively don't any states that can be abused as 
deferred has been in the past.

I'm pretty positively against having any more than the current number of 
states. KISS and all that, too many states just makes these discussions 
more complicated...

on with the rest of the thread...

Chris

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