From A.Robinson at ms.unimelb.edu.au  Mon Nov  7 23:56:35 2005
From: A.Robinson at ms.unimelb.edu.au (Andrew Robinson)
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2005 09:56:35 +1100
Subject: [Rd] Brainstorm: Alpha and Beta testing of R versions
In-Reply-To: <17263.49818.469371.738460@stat.math.ethz.ch>
References: <p06210200bf8fdc0381f9@[129.206.113.130]>
	<A2AC7F8A-16B6-4E81-813D-3889DEBB28EF@r-project.org>
	<17259.8903.764080.973751@stat.math.ethz.ch>
	<20051106000130.GB1601@ms.unimelb.edu.au>
	<17263.49818.469371.738460@stat.math.ethz.ch>
Message-ID: <20051107225635.GS34329@ms.unimelb.edu.au>

Martin, you're very welcome.  

> A general point about your suggestions:  You seem to assume that
> bug reports are typically entered via the R-bugs web interface

Yes, that was the premiss of my suggestions.  Perhaps to supplement
these ideas, bug.report() could be rewritten to prompt useful
information, much as prompt() does. And simple e-mail to
R-bugs at r-project.org could be filtered to only allow entries from R
core, and/or a list of registered beta testers.

> actually we have been thinking of moving to bugzilla -- if only
> Peter Dalgaard could find a smart enough person (even to be paid)
> who'd port all the old bug reports into the new format..

I see that this would be useful.  What are the challenges? If funding
is available, then I wonder if any of the linked organizations might
be suitable?

http://www.bugzilla.org/support/consulting.html

> As you've remarked below, I've expressed gratitude more than once
> for helpful bug reports.

Absolutely, and the effect is appreciated.  Sadly, the average user
struggles to distinguish between a helpful and an unhelpful bug report
before sending it.

> indeed I was, partly.  The point was just that if the bug
> reporting will be something like a challenge with prizes, we had
> to discourage too many entries {which would be made just to try
> to win (a|the) prize}.

Yes, I see that.  I really don't think that we need prizes; I really
do think that we need to create an environment that actively mitigates
against the kinds of error that you/we find so frustrating. A sort of
TQM strategy.

Cheers

Andrew
-- 
Andrew Robinson
Senior Lecturer in Statistics                       Tel: +61-3-8344-9763
Department of Mathematics and Statistics            Fax: +61-3-8344-4599
University of Melbourne, VIC 3010 Australia
Email: a.robinson at ms.unimelb.edu.au    Website: http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au



[Rd] Brainstorm: Alpha and Beta testing of R versions
Andrew Robinson