Re: [rfa/doco] PROBLEMS: add regressions since gdb 6.0

Andrew Cagney
2004-03-18T16:05:02Z

>>> Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 18:39:50 -0500
>>> From: Andrew Cagney <cagney@gnu.org>
>>>
>>> NEWS contains a history of GDB, PROBLEMS does not.
>>>
>>> PROBLEMS is there to identify late breaking screwups and other issues in
>>> just _this_ release.
>
>
> Not necessarily. It depends on what purpose we want PROBLEMS to
> serve.
>
> One way of looking at PROBLEMS is as a repository of bugs that the GDB
> team already knows about, and that users therefore should not report
> as new bugs.

Er, we already have a repostory of known bugs, it's called the bug
database. Why duplicate the content and tracking effort?

> PROBLEMS can also mention work-arounds, so that users
> who bump into them can do whatever they need even though the bug isn't
> fixed yet.

> If viewed like that, it would make sense for PROBLEMS to include all
> the bugs that are still not fixed, even if they date back to version
> 0.0. Bugs that are solved should indeed be deleted from PROBLEMS.

PROBLEMS should draw the users attention to late breaking and immediate
issues that will hurt them (gdb doesn't build, this broke going from the
previous release). A bug already present in the previous release
_isn't_ new news. This is why the PROBLEMS file is the last thing
updated (well that and version.in).

At present the ANNOUNCEMENT that goes out with a GDB release:
http://sources.redhat.com/gdb/download/ANNOUNCEMENT
contains:
- the latest news
- the problems in _this_ release
Notice how both are lifted straight from the corresponding file, and
more importantly, notice how the problems refers the user to the bug
database.

Listing every single long standing nit in the PROBLEMS file just adds
unnecessary noise. If the user is looking for details, they can look in
the bug database.

> (Btw, if GDB still has bugs known since v0.0, it would say something
> quite unflattering about GDB maintenance, and that alone is IMHO a
> reason good enough to keep old unsolved bugs on record.)

Andrew