Re: [xwiki-devs] [Proposal] New Best Practice for closing issues as Duplicate

On 27 Sep 2016, at 11:38, Manuel Smeria <manuel(a)xwiki.com> wrote: Hi, Marius summed up pretty good exactly what I'm thinking. Users are not usually technical, so they will report the bug as they see it: the button doesn't work, the color is grey instead of blue, etc. If the developer that investigates the issue finds the cause for it, he can rephrase it using technical words inside the Git commit or even inside a Jira comment. AFAIK the search function in Jira also works for comments.

Thanks, Manuel On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 9:28 PM, Marius Dumitru Florea < mariusdumitru.florea(a)xwiki.com&gt; wrote: > On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 1:46 PM, Eduard Moraru &lt;enygma2002(a)gmail.com&gt; > wrote: > >> Hi, Manuel, >> >> On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 11:55 AM, Manuel Smeria &lt;manuel(a)xwiki.com&gt; > wrote: >> >>> Hello Devs, >>> >>> I would like to propose a new best practice for the way we close issues >> as >>> Duplicate. >>> >>> As an example I've reported this issue: >>> http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-13728 which was later closed as a >>> Duplicate to http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-13729. >>> >>> From my perspective, this is not correct since the issue I reported is >>> valid from an user's POV. >>> I would have preferred that my issue was renamed and that developers >> would >>> have added some technical information as a comment to it if they wanted >> to >>> do so. >>> It just doesn't make any sense to me to close a perfectly valid issue > as >> a >>> Duplicate just to create another one that has a more technically > correct >>> summary and description. >>> >>> It also doesn't make sense to close the original issue as a Duplicate > to >> a >>> duplicate issue :) (pun intended) >>> I see things like this: my issue's description is a use-case of the > issue >>> later reported by Edy, so if anything, Edy's issue should be closed as > a >>> Duplicate to mine and not the other way around. >>> >> >> > >> As you have explained it yourself, the issue you have created is a >> *usecase*, a *manifestation* of a real problem. That is why we have >> identified the real problem (the "cause") and I have created an issue to >> specifically address it and fix it, linking your manifestation issue to > the >> actual problem that caused it. A developer will work to fix the actual >> problem, and not its many manifestations. This way, in the issues tracker >> (jira), we will have recorded both the actual problem and one (or many) > of >> its manifestations so that, when a user (or even a dev) does a search > for a >> manifestation, it will be easy to find the actual problem he is having >> (manifestation), but also the real problem that caused it (and when it > was >> fixed). >> > > The users will always report the manifestation of a problem. They report > what they see. They don't investigate. Following your practice would mean > closing all user-reported issues as duplicate once the developer finds the > real cause. I don't think this is right. Moreover, AFAIK the best practice > when reporting issues, even for developers, is to describe the > manifestation in the issue title. What's important is to understand how the > users are affected. The developer can look for details (like the cause of > the problem) in the comments. > > Thanks, > Marius > > >> >> If we were to modify the manifestation issue or simply add a comment, we >> would lose all the above mentioned information, which would not be ideal, >> so, instead, even if it breaks a bit the chronology of things, we mark > the >> manifestation issue as a duplicate of the "cause" issue, which makes >> perfect sense when you look at it this way. Fixing the cause will >> automatically fix all reported manifestations which were clearly marked > as >> duplicates of the cause. >> >> So, in practice, when there are more opened issues that are clearly >> duplicates, the one with the most information and that best identifies > the >> real source of the problem is left opened, while all the others which are >> addressing manifestations get closed as duplicates of the previous one, >> even if that issue happened to be reported later in the chronology. >> >> >>> >>> One scenario where I think issues dated previously should be closed as >>> Duplicate is if the new issue has already been fixed. For example when > a >>> Developer doesn't notice an older issue and starts working on the new > one >>> instead of closing the new one as a Duplicate and work on the older > one. >>> There might be more, feel free to add them to this thread. >>> >> >> Yes, we do that already. >> >> >>> >>> So, what I propose is that we don't close original issues as Duplicate >>> unless it falls into the category previously described or some other >>> exceptions that I can't think of now and might occur. >>> >> >> As I mentioned, the "original" issue is less valuable both to users and > to >> devs as an identified "cause" issue, which really needs fixing. > "Original" >> issues still offer value to users when searching or reading release > notes, >> but that`s as far as it can go. >> >> Does this make sense? >> >> Thanks, >> Eduard >> >> >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Manuel