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Re: unreproducable bugs



"Michael K. Edwards" <m.k.edwards@gmail.com> writes:

> On 7/15/05, Rich Walker <rw@shadow.org.uk> wrote:
>> "Michael K. Edwards" <m.k.edwards@gmail.com> writes:
>> > On 7/15/05, Manoj Srivastava va, manoj <srivasta@debian.org> wrote:
>> >>         What's with the recent push to get every little things written
>> >>  down into policy, so the developer no longer is required to have an
>> >>  ability to think, or exercise any judgement whatsoever?
>> >
>> > Welcome to the software industry in 2005.
>> 
>> Yes, to rely on 1300 developers to all think of your cunning method of
>> solving a problem clearly makes sense. After all, to *write down* a
>> technique that solves the problem, and make it available to all of them
>> would stilt their creativity, hinder their intellect, and prevent the
>> development of a consistent style!
>
> I am having a hard time reading this as anything but a non sequitur. 

Umm; it follows more from Manoj's comment than yours.

> Personally, I prefer for a solution to be demonstrated to work, both
> socially and technically, before it is enshrined in policy.  Drafts
> are, of course, welcome at any stage.  "Rough consensus and running
> code."  YMMV.

You scale an organisation, I understand, by removing the *need* for
everyone in it to be a genius at everything it does.

Hence the comment about the US army: "designed by genius to be run by
sergeants".

There does seem to be a lot of discussion on the debian groups about
policy. If Debian is lucky, or well-managed, then it is the process you
are describing. If it is unlucky, then it is a bunch of rule-lawyers
having fun.


>
>> Sheesh, next you'll be arguing in favour of personal indentation styles!
>
> Well, yes -- as long as the indent / emacs-mode / vim-mode
> incantations that reproduce them are well documented, preferably in a
> magic comment at the end of each file.  :-)

Exactly: that and an indent script in the checkin routine remove any
issue.

See how that compares to policy, which is hopefully implemented in such
a way as to be mechanically testable?

cheers, Rich.

>
> Cheers,
> - Michael
>

-- 
rich walker         |  Shadow Robot Company | rw@shadow.org.uk
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