Bug Reports
Is there a place for bug reports?
Try this:
It emails bug reports to the max list in the proper format (the user
must be subscribed to the max list).
If it is abused I will remove it promptly.
That's pretty neat, but what about the new forum - is there a special place in the works for bug reports in the forum? Many forums have this, and it would nice since reports wouldn't get buried by email, you could click on "Bug Reports" in the respective software group or something and there they would be, you wouldn't have to search through the mailing list. Another advantage of this is users can avoid duplication by quickly seeing if they should file a bug or not by looking in "Bug Reports" in the forum.
My 2c. Since many "bug reports" end up being misunderstandings or launching points for discussions for other ways to approach a problem, segregrating them from the main discussion would likely be less valuable for the community at large, although it might make our work a little easier. My suspicion is that most people wouldn't read that forum and the people reporting the bugs would either cross-post (blah), or never benefit from the collective wisdom of the main lists.
jb
Thanks for the php script and the suggestion.
We have discussed making a web form for bug reports, and it looks like now might be as good a time as any for us to further that discussion internally. I think it's a great idea.
-Andrew
How about a list of bugs maintained by Cycling 74 posted once they have been confirmed by their staff?
This list should include the nature of the bug and a prediction of when it will be (or was) fixed.
Syndey B.
> How about a list of bugs maintained by Cycling 74 posted once they
> have been confirmed by their staff?
I second the motion. Or just send an acknowledgement e-mail could be
kind...
pa
Actually - if you want a follow up and detailed resolution of a bug report, the best place to send it is
support@cycling74.com
and not the Max list at all. The support@ address enters it directly into our bug tracking system. The contents of the bug tracking system are not public, but you will receive an answer.
-Andrew
I'm not sure about the "when it will be fixed" part, but I believe
there is, or will be, a section of the website devoted to incremental
updates, which would serve a similar purpose. I can't think of a
single software company which makes a point of advertising their bugs
before they've been fixed. Apple doesn't even tell you about them
afterward.
jb
It's true, Cycling74 is one of the few companies that publicly
acknowledges their bugs *before* they are fixed.
Then again, they're usually not security-related exploits, or such.
But I second that "bugs" should be sent to the main list, because they
do usually seem to be misunderstandings.
-evan
Andrew Pask wrote:
> The contents of the bug tracking system are not public
>
Perhaps they should be. Not that Cycling '74 is dishonest or anything,
but I, as an end user that has paid for the product, would like to know
if a bug that is affecting me is in the "we'll get to it when we feel
like it" pile. Too many companies take this approach, in my opinion.
Has anyone reading this thread ever used bugzilla.mozilla.org? Besides
being able to see every bug, it has a voting system, which would be a
great way for users to drive the development effort for fixing bugs.
-Jonathan
The contents of the bug tracking system will never be made fully or even partially public, apart from the personal email responses one might get from support@.
The reason for this is that in most cases where we find a "real" bug, the internal discussion of its resolution may be speculative, in terms of the technology of unannounced future releases, or in a multitude of other different ways entirely not the sort of thing we would wish to be generally broadcast about.
If you have submitted a bug report to support@ and not received a satisfactory response, please feel free to email me directly and I shall chase it down for you.
-A
Not be a deliberately argumentative, but Cycling '74/MaxMSP is not a
democratic organisation. Ultimately, we get to decide which bugs we
think are fixable/worth fixing and, although we really try our
hardest to make everyone happy, the hard truth is that we _will_ get
to it when we can (or when we feel like it, whichever comes first).
There are reasons why companies take this approach -- beyond the
aforementioned reluctance to advertise bugs in their software, making
"promises" my offering a list of potential fixes or enhancements
(plus, even worse, potential time frames for the handling of these
things) raises customer expectations, impatience _and_
disappointment, when _their_ bug gets moved to the bottom of the
list, etc.
I can think of little worse for my work environment, than handing my
job priority list over to the members of this forum. I can think of
little worse for our software and this forum, than having our
priorities available for discussion.
jb
What about us Max/MSP customers that sometimes waste hours of work trying to solve something that is a known bug to Cycling but has not not been made public knowledge?
A Cycling published list could potentially save hours of aggravation and thus work to the benefit of Cycling as well as to the users.
Syndey B.
And this has happened to you how many times ..?
Come on, I've never known a software company with such
an amazingly quick response to bug reports. Sometimes
fixes are posted within less than an hour of being
reported; try saying that about yer Macromedias & yer
Digidesigns!
I think the existing system has been shown to work
pretty well, and whilst a new forum may present new
opportunities, I think it's rather churlish to
complain of 'hours wasted', given Cycling's current
track record,
Dear Roger,
I can tell you about some Max bugs I passed to Cycling that took 6-8 months to fix – with me constantly sending them reminders. There is still an outstanding bug I spent many hours on pinpointing that is waiting for a solution. So please don’t tell me that everything is rosy in the bug squishing department.
But my point is not how quickly or slowly bugs are fixed. My point is that if I had to spend hours to figure out that my program isn’t working the way it should because of a buggy object AND Cycling confirmed this bug YOU should be able to read about it in a “known issues/bugs” database so you won’t need to step into the same trap. This is not about how fast the bug is fixed but how transparent it is made to other users once it has been revealed.
Syndey B.