Bug 103795

[James Richard Tyrer]

I guess that I should try to make clear that it is not my intention to:
"Whine" or "Preach".  If I was actually talking, you could probably tell
because I just ramble on in a somewhat professorial tone.  I hope that I 
come across that way to people in writing -- that I just blog on 
(perhaps to the point of being boring).  If my blogs seem vehement, it 
is because I do care about this (is that bad).

Someone was nice enough to write me personally and advise me:

> You cannot impose process on a free software development community
> such as KDE, no matter how loud or how long you scream, nor no matter
> how right you insist that you are, nor no matter what names you quote
> or what figures you can come up with. You can only inspire from
> within, by example, by sweat.  This isn't a business, and it isn't
> industry, and it works a bit different to what you might expect

Well, obviously, I don't think that KDE developers are that stubborn or 
'pig headed', I wouldn't bother wasting my time making suggestions. :-) 
  Or, perhaps he is correct and I am wasting my time.

My suggestions have been answered with presumptions.  I hope that those 
that have made them are not being presumptions to the point of being 
arrogant, but it kind of looks that way to me.

IAC, what I want to say is that those that have presumptuously told me 
that I was wrong (actually, they are saying that modern quality methods 
are wrong -- this is not just my opinion; I didn't think it up) are 
actually making my point.

IIUC, a small change was made to kdelibs/kio/kio/kdirlister.cpp and this 
caused a crash that took a month of bug hunting and some amount of work 
to fix.

The major presumption appears to be that we don't have enough volunteers 
to do the *extra* work to implement the ideas I have advocated.

I have to say that those making the presumptions just don't get what I 
am saying.  The theory of this idea is that it is *more* efficient to do 
it this way and although the work done is different, in total it takes 
_less_ work to do it this way.  So, I am offering this idea as a 
possible way to reduce the work load.  Now, I admit that I don't know if 
this would work with OSS, all I know is that business has adopted 
Demming's ideas because they work.

So, try to understand that if sufficient testing had been done at the 
time this minor change was made to: kdelibs/kio/kio/kdirlister.cpp to 
prevent the introduction of the bug into the code base that all of the 
time spent bug hunting and handling the bug reports on BugZilla would be 
saved.  This seems like a simple concept.  This would not have taken 
less work, it would have taken less work.

It has been suggested that I should recruit people to test other peoples 
code.  This is not about testing other peoples code, it is about testing 
you own code.  You can work in a group, but that probably isn't as 
efficient.

It is correctly stated that BugZilla is overloaded and that we don't 
have enough people to maintain it.  This is correct.  I am suggesting 
that we go at this from a different direction.  If we can prevent the 
introduction of bugs into the code base, we wouldn't have a many reports 
on BugZilla.

It was also suggested that I should lead by example.  I think that this 
is a good method which I try to practice.  I don't exactly know how to 
do that in this case since I sit alone at my computer and use the 
methods which I advocate.  When I write code, I spend at least as much 
time testing it as I do writing it.  Yes, I believe in the "walk of 
water" method -- the best way to avoid bugs is to write the code 
correctly.  I realize that this is difficult to do and as a project 
become larger it become more difficult to do.  But, IAC, it is still a 
good goal to strive for.

So, if there is anyone out there with an open mind (that does not 
express the usual reactionary response to a new idea) that would like to 
discuss this, please post your comments.  I also ask that those of you 
with a closed mind set please not take my word for anything.  Instead, 
please research the topic for yourself because this isn't about my 
ideas, it is about other's ideas -- I am just repeating what I have learned.

-- 
JRT