Granularity

[MattyT]

On Fri, 2002-10-18 at 02:55, Gervase Markham wrote:

> This one's about "granularity" - at what levels should you be able to 
> configure Bugzilla to do different things? Currently, for example, you 
> define voting preferences on a per-product basis, whereas the mail 
> formats are global. We have a number of features coming up, such as 
> custom fields, for which a granularity will also have to be chosen.

What really concerns me here is not the per-component issue, but the
fact that we're discussing it *after* it's been checked in.  And this is
hardly the first time it's happened for me.

Currently everyone is working on their own enhancements, and they only
get one review.  This means a large number of people are potentially in
the dark about the implementation of features, and complaints arise when
it's essentially too late.

Many freed software projects have a single mind who ultimately controls
what goes in and what doesn't - Linux for example.  We don't have this,
Dave probably does not have the time to design review all patches.  But
it's still important that we have vision and don't let Bugzilla become
any more crazy and unorthogonal than it already is in some places.

What I think needs to be done, is to have ALL enhancements thoroughly
summarised and the summary posted to this list.  If we do this, people
can easily see the issues, without irrelevant issues complicating the
main issues.  If no replies come in, that can be taken as implicit
approval, and people won't be able to complain they weren't informed.

We have certainly done this sort of thing before, but not for everything
(or even most things), and I think we should expect it to be.

-- 
         Matthew Tuck: Software Developer & All-Round Nice Guy        
 My Short Autobiography: 1985 Grade Bin Monitor 1990 Class Clown Award
1992 Awarded Most Likely To Spontaneously Combust 1996 Crowned Galactic
         Emperor 1998 Released From Smith Psychiatric Hospital