All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

RT, RT, RT, not Email, damn it!

Ovid on 2007-07-25T09:05:29

No offense, but if you send me an email with a bug report, there's a good chance that I won't get to it right away and if I don't get to it right away, there's a good chance I won't get to it ever.

On the other hand, if you post that bug report to the appropriate CPAN RT queue (and my modules generally even list a nice email address for you to do so without using the Web site, if you don't want to), then I will get to the bug report. Eventually. I forget email. I lose email. I don't lose RT.

I know many other CPAN authors with this same complaint. Please don't send us email about bugs. Use RT.

bounce the mail

Juerd on 2007-07-25T10:57:40

I have the following mutt keybinding to bounce mail to RT myself. They're never going to learn to use the right address, so I'm not trying to teach.

macro pager \~ "brtmailadresshere@example.com\n\ns=bouncedtort\n\n" "Bounce to RT"
macro index \~ "brtmailadresshere@example.com\n\ns=bouncedtort\n\n" "Bounce to RT"
This bounces the message to RT, and saves a copy of the original message in a folder called "bouncedtort". Since I get RT messages by mail too, this effectively *replaces* the message by one that has a ticket number. :)

RT could be more streamlined to use

markjugg on 2007-07-25T14:06:41

As a module author, I only wish RT felt more streamlined to use. Some annoyances:

  • Different URLS for the public and logged in versions of tickets.
  • Clicking the link to login, only to have RT tell me "You have been logged out". Huh? That implies I was logged in already, and am now just doing busy work to login again.
  • There's no "Really Resolve" button. First I have to use the resolve link and complete an additional step to submit the "update" form.


Re:RT could be more streamlined to use

Ovid on 2007-07-25T14:14:37

Yeah, RT has its nits, but as a central place for me to be able to keep bug reports and requests, it's what we've got.

And on a completely unrelated note, I've added the V|version switch to TAP::Parser's runtests, as you requested :)

Re:RT could be more streamlined to use

davebaker on 2007-07-27T03:46:37

Clicking the link to login, only to have RT tell me "You have been logged out". Huh? That implies I was logged in already, and am now just doing busy work to login again.

Gawd, I thought it was just me. I seem to get tripped up with the Bitcard process a lot.

Thanks, but no

drhyde on 2007-07-26T11:22:50

RT has a horrible interface, both for reporting bugs and for authors. I would far rather people report bugs in my code to me by email. So much so that if they do report them via RT, I have written a script that will pull them out and email them to me. With emailed bug reports, they sit on my laptop and are available to me even when I'm off the net. Bug reports in RT are utterly useless when I am, for instance, visiting the family over christmas, which is my most productive time for bugfixing.

The correct way to report bugs is not to use RT, but to use whatever the author says you should use.

Re:Thanks, but no

jdavidb on 2007-07-27T13:28:13

Right. This was the author saying what he wanted everybody to use.

I presume he already had said so in the module documentation and is ticked off that people didn't follow it. Of course, if he didn't, then he really doesn't have a leg to stand on with this rant. :)

Re:Thanks, but no

Ovid on 2007-07-27T14:33:21

Yes, I do have that listed in my modules. However, drhyde is right that individuals should report bugs the way the author wants them reported. I shouldn't have suggested that everyone do it my way, even if my way is right ;)