How to determine bug severity level?

[Joe Lewis Wilkins]

Ken,

I appreciate your more tempered response to what I had said in  
response to Michael's post. I'm pretty sure that you understood what  
I was saying, since you countered nicely, blow by blow. Nevertheless,  
I had to express my reaction to what Michael had said.

Thanks,

Joe Wilkins

On Jun 21, 2007, at 9:01 AM, Ken Ray wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 06:40:31 -0700, Joe Lewis Wilkins wrote:
>
>> Michael,
>>
>> IMO your are 100% on target. Frankly, I'm appalled at the scope and
>> degree of bugginess there appears to be in the current Rev release.
>
> Really? I'm sorry, Joe, I don't see that at all. Rev 2.8.1 has been  
> the
> most stable release for me in a long time, and I have yet to run into
> anything that has caused my apps to crash or lose data. And the bug
> that Michael posted has been in the product for a long time apparently
> (I just tested it in 2.1.2), but since it was never reported to
> Bugzilla, no one has encountered it until now.
>
> I'm not going to throw back the "there's bugs in every piece of
> software" hyperbole since it's so well-known it's not worth the  
> effort.
>
>> Were I working with the types of apps I used to
>> produce with HC, and foresaw inaccurate or lost data, I'd just throw
>> up my hands and withdraw from the game.
>
> I would too, if there was no workaround to get the data accurate  
> again.
> But there are so few actual bugs that don't have workarounds that
> there's no reason to do that. I'm not saying that "because there are
> workarounds, the bug(s) shouldn't be fixed" (obviously), but what I am
> saying is that it's the equivalent of sitting on a chair with one leg
> that's a little too short: you can live with it, you can workaround it
> with a matchbook cover, or you can say "I'm not going to sit on that
> chair until someone fixes it". I prefer the workaround. (Now if it  
> only
> had 1 leg, that's another matter entirely... ;-)
>
>> Since I haven't personally experienced all of the "reported" problems
>> mentioned, I can still be somewhat reserved in my criticism; but not
>> for long.
>
> Also keep in mind that everybody's setup is different - one person may
> encounter a bug that others don't (in fact just recently posts like
> that have been made). It's good to be aware of what other people are
> encountering; but until it happens to you, it doesn't become a  
> concrete
> impediment (IMHO).
>
>> AFAIC, even work-arounds are only acceptable on a VERY
>> temporary basis.
>
> Agreed. And reporting to Bugzilla and setting appropriate severity
> levels will help in making workarounds a temporary situation. There's
> definitely issues that RunRev has to deal with in relation to Bugzilla
> (we *all* know that), but if the bugs don't get posted there, there
> likely never to be addressed; whereas if they *are* in Bugzilla, they
> are more likely to be addressed. So it's worth the effort to post them
> (IMHO).
>
> Just my 2 cents,
>
> Ken Ray
> Sons of Thunder Software, Inc.