Mantis provides a patient persistent way to focus on an issue.
I use it to accumulate data on a problem until a solution can be found.
It provides a place to:
alert the community to a problem;
accumulate facts and clues from the analysis;
publish preposed solutions and get feedback;
get solutions harvested and included into the main stream.
wiz Q: When I try to X , it fails with an error.Who can fix this?
If you are the first one to notice it, you may also need to be the first one to do something about it.
If it needs fixing,
Plant a seed report on mantis.
Point to the report when you email the list.
As your time permits, add a sunit or acceptance test to help define what needs fixing.
Wait (may require a lot of patience).
Or not (or work on it yourself.)
Announce to the list or the release list when fix and test are ready for inclusion.
Wait, then nudge.
wiz Q: Here is a fix attached to my email directed to release team list.
Apologies but I don't know how to and don't really have time to add it to mantis. So if it
is important to you could you please add it to Mantis?
Mantis TRACKS bugs. If your contribution is important, then it is important to have it on the appropriate report. That gives it visibility and permanance and allows it to be found when future variations of the problem arise. There is also infomation in the report that it is important (to harvesters) to know you have seen and taken into account in your contribution.
While it may seem strange to treat your contribution as unfinished when you were nice enough to make it and send it along, please realize that others are also providing self-funded time and effort. They are doing this in greater quantities than you or I. So a little bit of effort on our part to take the burden off of them is important. Someone has the role of workhorse on the release team. Their efforts need to be respected and aided. Thanks for your understanding.
A: Just prefix a bug id with the # sign. So if you type #742 then it will automatically create a link to bug #742. Q: On the "View Issues" page, I just want to see the Squeak bugs, not the bugs for OpenCroquet or Squeakland, etc. These are listed in the "Category" column, and filtering by Category doesn't work.
A: Squeak/OpenCroquet/Squeakland/etc are actually "Projects" not Categories. Go to the menu in the upper-right corner and select the Squeak project. Then you can still filter by Category to see only the Morphic or VM bugs, for example.
Mantis and 3.10
Ralph Johnson
Thu Jan 25 12:40:01 UTC 2007 wrote:
I've been learning a lot about Mantis recently and I wanted to share
some things I learned.
3.10 will be like 3.9 in that our usual process for changing the
release will be to start with code that has been posted to Mantis.
Thus, from your point of view, it should seem that changes get put in
Mantis and then eventually moved to the latest release. In fact, we
will convert changes from the format usually used in Mantis (change
files) into changes to Montecello repositories, but most of you can
ignore that.
I used to think that an "open" issue was one that nobody had looked
at. It would be assigned to someone, who would fix it.
I was wrong. Many open issues have fixes. In fact, "open" means
"open for discussion". People need to check out fixes. There are
supposed to be stewards who will take responsibility for issues and
eventually declare that they are resolved. However, the stewards are
more likely to look at an issue if it is already fixed and if that fix
has been tested and has been studied by several people, who have given
it their approval. Stewards tend to be busy people, and so they are
more likely to do things that only take a little work than they are to
do things that take a lot of work. Also, there are many parts of the
system that have no stewards watching over them.
So, Squeak needs people to report bugs, to fix bugs, to try out fixes
and report on them, and to ask questions. You don't need to be an
expert to do these things. This is a great way to get to know people
and to learn some things about Squeak. To do this, you will need to
get a Mantis account. See http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/3860
Think of Mantis as an electronic bulletin board for proposed changes
to Squeak. That sounds friendlier than a "bug tracking system". It
should be a friendly place! It should be for discussion, not just
code.
