[Zope-dev] Re: [Zope-Coders] Collector Status Meanings

[Ken Manheimer]

On Fri, 30 Jul 2004, Chris Withers wrote:

> Chris McDonough wrote:
> > I don't think deferred is useless.  I used deferred to mean "stuff that
> > isn't so important that it needs to be fixed now, but stuff that should
> > be fixed nonetheless".
> 
> Sutff in this state can be left in pending, as most of it is now...

I think what your saying amounts to "stuff in deferred languishes because
there's so much of it and nobody looks there, so we should move it to
pending".  What i think this will accomplish is make it harder to tell the 
difference between stuff that's assessed as being deferrable and stuff 
that's not.  Why would you want to do that?

I do see value in getting people clearer about what belongs in the 
"deferred" state, so we can all benefit from the distinction.

> > IOW, deferred to me means it's been looked at,
> > it's been determined to be a real problem, but it's just not possible to
> > fix given resource constraints.  
> 
> pending with a comment is how this works in practice...

Evidently not everyone's practice.  I think if deferred were understood 
and used the way it should be there would be a gain.

> > I don't think it's important to move all issues from pending/deferred to
> > a "terminal" state like "wontfix"/"rejected"/"resolved".  
> 
> I agree, but I don't want them put in a "deferred" state which hides 
> them and might as well BE terminal...

Making things get hidden in Pending, which is worse.

> > It's ok to
> > leave some issues pending long-term, and this is what "deferred" is
> > for.  If that's a "dumping ground", I think it's ok.
> 
> They can stay in the pending state then, plenty of issues stay in the 
> pending state for years, so I see no difference between your use of 
> deferred and the current use of pending...

I think if people understood the difference better (thank you for this 
effort to make that happen!) it would work better.

Ken