[llvm-dev] Bug-closing protocol

[via llvm-dev]

So Reid, you'll be running a BoF on this at the October dev meeting? ☺
--paulr

From: llvm-dev [mailto:llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org] On Behalf Of Reid Kleckner via llvm-dev
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2018 6:12 PM
To: JVApen at gmail.com
Cc: llvm-dev
Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] Bug-closing protocol

Thanks for taking the time to report bugs! I think you are responsible for filing the most high-quality clang-cl bugs.

I hope our bug responses continue to be helpful and informative, but things do often get lost in translation. =/

I also think there's a lot we could do to improve our bug hygiene and processes as a community. The way our bugzilla is configured, pinging bugs does not sent email to llvm-bugs@, so if an issue is not immediately triaged within a week after filing it, it's very unlikely that anyone will ever find it. As a community, we could set up rotations to triage stale bugs, but this takes resources, commitments, and planning. It's eminently doable, but it's not something that any one person or team of contributors can do on their own, so people tend to shy away from disturbing established processes.

On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 10:33 PM JVApen via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
Hi all,

First of all, I'm sorry to create a separate thread on the mailing list, I have disabled all mails from it.

I just read the thread about the bug closing protocol thanks to LLVMWeekly. (http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2018-June/123955.html)

I've noticed a lot of reactions from people involved with the solving part of the bugs. So I'm putting out the loggers point of view. (Or at least mine)

I'm totally in favor of getting relevant information when a bug gets closed. Over the last couple of years, I've logged several bugs, of which a couple of clang-cl compatibility bugs where put to invalid.
Having a good explanation on why this is closed helped me a lot in manually fixing several thousand of occurrences of that pattern. Both mentally to not give up, as by understanding the problem.
Please keep doing so!

However, from my point of view, this is the tip of an iceberg. Out of about 50 bugs I've logged on a variety of modules, only half reached an end state. (Either fixed or invalid/won't fix).

My problem also lies in that other half, those bugs that have been open for more than 2 weeks (upto 5 years). Cause if you don't get a reaction within those 2 weeks, the chances of getting a reaction drop a lot. (Or if reactions suddenly stop)

When a bug goes into such a state, you are lost as a bug logger. It took me a couple of years getting our companies code compiling with clang-cl (linking is far future), working around obscure bugs of which I still don't know if you (as community/maintainer) agree if it is a bug.

To make matters worse, every time a component gets upgraded (internal library, extrernal library or even the tool-chain, including clang), there is a high probability of firefighting issues. Only when that fails, I spent time logging a bug (as creduce doesn't work on my system).

In the best case scenario, I get an event like this weekend that states: merged.
This means: I'm certain I'll have a fix in the future. Unfortunately, it is only available in the next official release, which will happen in September. And with a bit of luck, you can find back what the actual revision is, to see the diff. So for now, the code is ifdef-ed out for clang as it won't link anyhow.

In conclusion: I really respect the work you do, this puts the standard on a high level. Taking the time to inform the bug logger is a must have. However, it is not the only place were we as bug loggers are lacking information.

JVApen
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