marklinimon:bugbustingofficehours

Office Hours bugbusting topics.

These are MarkLinimon's ideas for specific topics to work on to help focus efforts during any type of bugbusting session.

the information in this page was adapted from the notes from the bugbusting working session in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada in May 2019.

Introduction

Let's just term them “issues” from here on.

Note that PRs contain a mix of suggested patches along with what is truly a Problem Report; the DRs are almost all patches.

In the past, bugbusting sessions have worked best when a specific goal was set ahead of time: either:
- a certain subset of issues, or
- an preselected list of issues.

Although it might seem counter-intuitive, the idea “start with the oldest ones” winds up being very frustrating. Some of these issues are complex and have been contentious for years. A better choice is to work backwards.

When working older issues, be aware that the submitter may respond negatively even though you are trying to help – just due to the length of time the issue has sat un-addressed. Be prepared to be patient. Nothing is more irrtitating to submitters than closing an issue years after it has been submitted with “oh gosh sorry”. Novice bugbusters may wish to leave those for the hardened old-timers.

Phabricator
- can create custom queries, but somewhat cumbersome
- I can't figure out how to query “assigned to no one”
  - Should there be a policy to say “all DRs must a non-null reviewer”? even if it is a group?