BZ 2138 (was Re: ANN: BreakpointNavigator Plugin release)

[Jerry Balzano]

On Apr 13, 2005, at 6:48 AM, Alex Tweedly wrote:

> btw - BZ 2138 (can't run apps by double-click) is an Enhancement 
> request - since the docs don't claim it should be possible, I couldn't 
> find any excuse to make it a "bug" rather than an enhancement request; 
> that may be another reason it hasn't been fixed yet.


Given the universality of the double-click-document-lauch-application 
paradigm, I'd say that the reason it's not in the docs is that **it is 
generally assumed to hold true**.  Surely we can think of many 
"obvious" characteristics that wouldn't be "in the docs" but would be 
taken as a bug if they didn't hold true.  So I don't accept the "in the 
docs" as a criterion for bughood.  (This is all the more true given the 
admittedly sketchy nature of the docs; why would there be any need e.g. 
for Dan Shafer to write an eBook on the IDE if the docs were in any 
sense comprehensive?)

While I'm at it, I also object to the "counsel-of-despair" attitude of 
not voting for bugs just because one hasn't reviewed all of bugzilla.  
The idea that there may be "more important bugs" that you haven't run 
across in your day-to-day transactions with Rev doesn't make sense to 
me.  I think as users we need to trust -- if nothing else -- the idea 
of our interactions with Rev as a reasonable sample of possible 
interactions.  So bugs that persistently get in our way are worth 
noting for that reason alone.  Bugs that never darken our doors are by 
definition not critical to the (or at least our) day-to-day experience 
using Rev.  When someone encounters what looks like a bug, they mention 
it to this list.  If it's already been bugzilla-ed (and therefore 
already encountered as a problem by at least one other user), someone 
generally responds to inform the original mentioner of that fact.  If 
it's been a very recent topic of conversation, the mentioner might even 
get (gently) chided for not paying close enough attention to the list.

Clearly, reading all of (or even a sizeable fraction of) bugzilla is 
not a reasonable practice to expect of Rev users; if that were the 
criterion for legitimate voting for bugs, it would never be legitimate 
for most of us to vote on anything (folks like Richard aside).  What 
*is* a reasonable practice to expect, when one finds a bug, is for one 
to do a quick search of the list archive to look for potentially 
useful/relevant information, and failing on that score, mentioning it 
the list.

Perhaps I'll be in the minority on this issue too, like I was on Dan 
reporting on "third party" products and plugins (Dan, you never 
addressed the "looking over D Shafer's shoulder" mindset that I would 
think you'd welcome on the part of potential readers; omitting 
third-party products that you use all the time would at best weaken 
this possibility and at worst mislead ... end parenthetical).  But I 
thought I'd try nonetheless, both on this specific bug#2138 and on the 
general "get out the vote" aesthetic.

Not despairing yet,
Jerry