Should non-security 2.7 bugs be fixed?

[dieter]

Rick Johnson <rantingrickjohnson at gmail.com> writes:

> On Sunday, July 19, 2015 at 12:54:34 AM UTC-5, dieter wrote:
>> From my point of view: if you want help with fixing bugs,
>> you must ensure that there is a high probability that
>> those contributions really find their way into the main
>> development lines. As I understand from other messages in
>> this thread, this is also a problem with Python bug
>> fixing.
>
> (Not sure who said this, so my apologies if the attribution
> is incorrect)
>     
> Bug fixing is not something most programmers find enjoyable,
> at least not for long durations. I prefer to spend my time
> solving real world problems, and designing intuitive APIs,
> this is what brings me joy. 

This was me.

And I am like you. I do not hunt bugs I find in a bug tracker
but only bugs I get hit in real world problems.
But once hit, I usually find a solution (or work around)
and like to share it with others who might get hit in the future.
That's why I take the time to file bug reports (often with patches).

But when those bug reports and patches seem to be ignored by
the core development team - I look for other means, such as
external packages.


> Heck, there have been many times that i purposefully re-
> invented the wheel simply because solving the problem is
> much easier (and more enjoyable) than trying to understand
> another programmer's atrocious spaghetti code. Therefor, we
> should not be surprised that the bug list is so understaffed
> and lacks vigor.

In my experience (with other open source projects), I think
almost none of my patches was ever taken over without modifications.
In my view, the changes were usually of a cosmetic nature.
For me, this is fine - as long as the problem gets fixed.

> ...
> What is becoming apparent to me though, is that most of the
> complaints i had voiced (years ago) about the exclusive
> attitudes, horrible interface, and the burdensome workflow
> of submitting patches is contributing to the lack of
> interest in this process -> and it seems i am not alone!
>
> I can remember twice getting excited about helping out, to
> only quickly become frustrated with the politics and
> interface. Why should i have to fight just to volunteer?

Experience like this (in another project) causes me to
be very reluctant to become a core contributor (in the sense
of actively fixing things in the core). You need a lot of knowledge
(coding conventions, test setup, change workflow, ...) whichs
goes far beyond the functionality of the fix -- and you
must be resilient, patient and maybe even fighting to get the work
accepted.