bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

[Andrew Pinski via Gdb]

Hi all,
  As talked about during the GNU tools cauldron, the gdb and gcc
keywords usage here are different but folks mentioned it would be a
good idea to have the same between the 2 bugzilla instances. Right now
gcc is easyhack while gdb uses good-first-bug. Both have issues with
the naming of each.
So I was thinking of a good name and came up with beginner-improvement .

I know this is all bikeshedding but in this case since the 2 projects
right now use different naming we have a good chance to come up with a
good name in the first place.
beginner-improvement has a few advantages, first it is about being a
beginner to the project. How long someone can be a beginner is up to
them; it does not need to be their first issue solving. And the idea
of an issue being easy is also left behind; some of them might not
actually be "easy" but a beginner can still solve it.
Plus in many cases it is not exactly a bug but rather than an
improvement that needs to be done so this new name removes that side
of things.


So in summary, beginner-improvement is my proposal for the new keyword.

Thanks,
Andrew Pinski

Re: bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

[Luis via Gdb]

On 29/09/2025 21:07, Andrew Pinski wrote:
> Hi all,
>    As talked about during the GNU tools cauldron, the gdb and gcc
> keywords usage here are different but folks mentioned it would be a
> good idea to have the same between the 2 bugzilla instances. Right now
> gcc is easyhack while gdb uses good-first-bug. Both have issues with
> the naming of each.
> So I was thinking of a good name and came up with beginner-improvement .
> 
> I know this is all bikeshedding but in this case since the 2 projects
> right now use different naming we have a good chance to come up with a
> good name in the first place.
> beginner-improvement has a few advantages, first it is about being a
> beginner to the project. How long someone can be a beginner is up to
> them; it does not need to be their first issue solving. And the idea
> of an issue being easy is also left behind; some of them might not
> actually be "easy" but a beginner can still solve it.
> Plus in many cases it is not exactly a bug but rather than an
> improvement that needs to be done so this new name removes that side
> of things.
> 
> 
> So in summary, beginner-improvement is my proposal for the new keyword.
> 
> Thanks,
> Andrew Pinski

Personally I'm fine with beginner-improvement. Would we need to go 
hunting for the old names to do the mass updates?

Re: bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

[Florian Weimer via Gdb]

* Andrew Pinski via Gcc:

> So I was thinking of a good name and came up with beginner-improvement .

Is the improvement referring to the bug or the beginner?

Thanks,
Florian

Re: bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

[Sam James via Gdb]

Andrew Pinski <andrew.pinski@oss.qualcomm.com> writes:

> Hi all,
>   As talked about during the GNU tools cauldron, the gdb and gcc
> keywords usage here are different but folks mentioned it would be a
> good idea to have the same between the 2 bugzilla instances. Right now
> gcc is easyhack while gdb uses good-first-bug. Both have issues with
> the naming of each.

'good-first-*' is what people tend to search for in other
projects. Having it aligned (and optimising for new contributors) makes
sense, I think.

> [...]

sam

Re: bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

[Richard Biener via Gdb]

> Am 30.09.2025 um 08:27 schrieb Luis via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>:
> 
> On 29/09/2025 21:07, Andrew Pinski wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>   As talked about during the GNU tools cauldron, the gdb and gcc
>> keywords usage here are different but folks mentioned it would be a
>> good idea to have the same between the 2 bugzilla instances. Right now
>> gcc is easyhack while gdb uses good-first-bug. Both have issues with
>> the naming of each.
>> So I was thinking of a good name and came up with beginner-improvement .
>> I know this is all bikeshedding but in this case since the 2 projects
>> right now use different naming we have a good chance to come up with a
>> good name in the first place.
>> beginner-improvement has a few advantages, first it is about being a
>> beginner to the project. How long someone can be a beginner is up to
>> them; it does not need to be their first issue solving. And the idea
>> of an issue being easy is also left behind; some of them might not
>> actually be "easy" but a beginner can still solve it.
>> Plus in many cases it is not exactly a bug but rather than an
>> improvement that needs to be done so this new name removes that side
>> of things.
>> So in summary, beginner-improvement is my proposal for the new keyword.
>> Thanks,
>> Andrew Pinski
> 
> Personally I'm fine with beginner-improvement. Would we need to go hunting for the old names to do the mass updates?

I think it’s possible to rename keywords?

Richard 

Re: bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

[Jonathan Wakely via Gdb]

On Tue, 30 Sept 2025 at 09:39, Dhruv Chawla via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
>
> On 30/09/25 13:19, Sam James via Gcc wrote:
> > External email: Use caution opening links or attachments
> >
> >
> > Andrew Pinski <andrew.pinski@oss.qualcomm.com> writes:
> >
> >> Hi all,
> >>    As talked about during the GNU tools cauldron, the gdb and gcc
> >> keywords usage here are different but folks mentioned it would be a
> >> good idea to have the same between the 2 bugzilla instances. Right now
> >> gcc is easyhack while gdb uses good-first-bug. Both have issues with
> >> the naming of each.
> >
> > 'good-first-*' is what people tend to search for in other
> > projects. Having it aligned (and optimising for new contributors) makes
> > sense, I think.
> >
> >> [...]
> >
> > sam
>
> +1 to this. I feel like "beginner-improvement" and "easyhack" are harder to
> parse than "good-first-bug" or "good-first-issue" (which LLVM uses FWIW), and
> it is not immediately obvious to me what either of them mean.

Yeah, I really don't care that somebody might decide to work on a
"good first issue" as their second or third issue. It would still a
good first one for somebody else, it just happens to be that person's
second or third.

"beginner-improvement" is too long, and I had the same question as
Florian about who or what is being improved.

Re: bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

[Guinevere Larsen via Gdb]

On 9/30/25 6:04 AM, Jonathan Wakely wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Sept 2025 at 09:39, Dhruv Chawla via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
>> On 30/09/25 13:19, Sam James via Gcc wrote:
>>> External email: Use caution opening links or attachments
>>>
>>>
>>> Andrew Pinski <andrew.pinski@oss.qualcomm.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>     As talked about during the GNU tools cauldron, the gdb and gcc
>>>> keywords usage here are different but folks mentioned it would be a
>>>> good idea to have the same between the 2 bugzilla instances. Right now
>>>> gcc is easyhack while gdb uses good-first-bug. Both have issues with
>>>> the naming of each.
>>> 'good-first-*' is what people tend to search for in other
>>> projects. Having it aligned (and optimising for new contributors) makes
>>> sense, I think.
>>>
>>>> [...]
>>> sam
>> +1 to this. I feel like "beginner-improvement" and "easyhack" are harder to
>> parse than "good-first-bug" or "good-first-issue" (which LLVM uses FWIW), and
>> it is not immediately obvious to me what either of them mean.
> Yeah, I really don't care that somebody might decide to work on a
> "good first issue" as their second or third issue. It would still a
> good first one for somebody else, it just happens to be that person's
> second or third.
>
> "beginner-improvement" is too long, and I had the same question as
> Florian about who or what is being improved.
>
I am not a fan of easy-hack, and I find good-first-bug mentally longer 
because it is one more word (even if fewer characters). However, I don't 
really mind how wordy it is because bugzilla can autofill the options 
based on the partial typing, so I don't care about wordiness


I like beginner-improvement and I'm fine with good-first-bug. If 
would-be contributors are already searching for one, we should 
definitely standardize on the one that is already searched (or at least 
match the beginning). I'll try to see if I can look up what kernel, QEMU 
and other systems engineering projects use.

-- 
Cheers,
Guinevere Larsen
It/she

Re: bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

[Andrew Pinski via Gdb]

On Mon, Sep 29, 2025 at 11:25 PM Luis <luis.machado.foss@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 29/09/2025 21:07, Andrew Pinski wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >    As talked about during the GNU tools cauldron, the gdb and gcc
> > keywords usage here are different but folks mentioned it would be a
> > good idea to have the same between the 2 bugzilla instances. Right now
> > gcc is easyhack while gdb uses good-first-bug. Both have issues with
> > the naming of each.
> > So I was thinking of a good name and came up with beginner-improvement .
> >
> > I know this is all bikeshedding but in this case since the 2 projects
> > right now use different naming we have a good chance to come up with a
> > good name in the first place.
> > beginner-improvement has a few advantages, first it is about being a
> > beginner to the project. How long someone can be a beginner is up to
> > them; it does not need to be their first issue solving. And the idea
> > of an issue being easy is also left behind; some of them might not
> > actually be "easy" but a beginner can still solve it.
> > Plus in many cases it is not exactly a bug but rather than an
> > improvement that needs to be done so this new name removes that side
> > of things.
> >
> >
> > So in summary, beginner-improvement is my proposal for the new keyword.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Andrew Pinski
>
> Personally I'm fine with beginner-improvement. Would we need to go
> hunting for the old names to do the mass updates?

You can rename keywords in bugzilla so there is not much to do except rename it.
But it seems the consensus at this point of time is `good-first-issue`
which I guess I am ok with too.
I will wait a few more days before declaring a consensus.

Thanks,
Andrew

Re: bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

[Andrew Pinski via Gdb]

On Tue, Sep 30, 2025 at 2:04 AM Jonathan Wakely <jwakely.gcc@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 30 Sept 2025 at 09:39, Dhruv Chawla via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
> >
> > On 30/09/25 13:19, Sam James via Gcc wrote:
> > > External email: Use caution opening links or attachments
> > >
> > >
> > > Andrew Pinski <andrew.pinski@oss.qualcomm.com> writes:
> > >
> > >> Hi all,
> > >>    As talked about during the GNU tools cauldron, the gdb and gcc
> > >> keywords usage here are different but folks mentioned it would be a
> > >> good idea to have the same between the 2 bugzilla instances. Right now
> > >> gcc is easyhack while gdb uses good-first-bug. Both have issues with
> > >> the naming of each.
> > >
> > > 'good-first-*' is what people tend to search for in other
> > > projects. Having it aligned (and optimising for new contributors) makes
> > > sense, I think.
> > >
> > >> [...]
> > >
> > > sam
> >
> > +1 to this. I feel like "beginner-improvement" and "easyhack" are harder to
> > parse than "good-first-bug" or "good-first-issue" (which LLVM uses FWIW), and
> > it is not immediately obvious to me what either of them mean.
>
> Yeah, I really don't care that somebody might decide to work on a
> "good first issue" as their second or third issue. It would still a
> good first one for somebody else, it just happens to be that person's
> second or third.
>
> "beginner-improvement" is too long, and I had the same question as
> Florian about who or what is being improved.

Those are all good points about "beginner-improvement" that I didn't think of.

Note on the issue of bug vs issue; I rather go with issue rather than
bug; as bug can be seen as more negative than an issue. Or maybe
change. first-good-change but let's see what other projects use.

Thanks,
Andrew

Re: bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

[Matt Rice via Gdb]

On Tue, Sep 30, 2025 at 11:49 AM Andrew Pinski via Binutils
<binutils@sourceware.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Sep 29, 2025 at 11:25 PM Luis <luis.machado.foss@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 29/09/2025 21:07, Andrew Pinski wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >    As talked about during the GNU tools cauldron, the gdb and gcc
> > > keywords usage here are different but folks mentioned it would be a
> > > good idea to have the same between the 2 bugzilla instances. Right now
> > > gcc is easyhack while gdb uses good-first-bug. Both have issues with
> > > the naming of each.
> > > So I was thinking of a good name and came up with beginner-improvement .
> > >
> > > I know this is all bikeshedding but in this case since the 2 projects
> > > right now use different naming we have a good chance to come up with a
> > > good name in the first place.
> > > beginner-improvement has a few advantages, first it is about being a
> > > beginner to the project. How long someone can be a beginner is up to
> > > them; it does not need to be their first issue solving. And the idea
> > > of an issue being easy is also left behind; some of them might not
> > > actually be "easy" but a beginner can still solve it.
> > > Plus in many cases it is not exactly a bug but rather than an
> > > improvement that needs to be done so this new name removes that side
> > > of things.
> > >
> > >
> > > So in summary, beginner-improvement is my proposal for the new keyword.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Andrew Pinski
> >
> > Personally I'm fine with beginner-improvement. Would we need to go
> > hunting for the old names to do the mass updates?
>
> You can rename keywords in bugzilla so there is not much to do except rename it.
> But it seems the consensus at this point of time is `good-first-issue`
> which I guess I am ok with too.
> I will wait a few more days before declaring a consensus.

I think consensus is likely to stay at something like `good-first-issue`,
it has long been in the default set of labels for github issue tracker.
In that sense it is going to tend towards being familiar outside of
the gnu project.

The rust project also uses labels for easy, medium, hard, which
give a rough estimate of the difficulty of fixing an issue. I don't care
immensely but feel like these estimates of difficulty are good too and slightly
more flexible than these beginner friendly messages...

Re: bugzilla keyword for beginner issues to work on

[Jeff Law via Gdb]

On 9/29/25 2:07 PM, Andrew Pinski wrote:
> Hi all,
>    As talked about during the GNU tools cauldron, the gdb and gcc
> keywords usage here are different but folks mentioned it would be a
> good idea to have the same between the 2 bugzilla instances. Right now
> gcc is easyhack while gdb uses good-first-bug. Both have issues with
> the naming of each.
> So I was thinking of a good name and came up with beginner-improvement .
> 
> I know this is all bikeshedding but in this case since the 2 projects
> right now use different naming we have a good chance to come up with a
> good name in the first place.
> beginner-improvement has a few advantages, first it is about being a
> beginner to the project. How long someone can be a beginner is up to
> them; it does not need to be their first issue solving. And the idea
> of an issue being easy is also left behind; some of them might not
> actually be "easy" but a beginner can still solve it.
> Plus in many cases it is not exactly a bug but rather than an
> improvement that needs to be done so this new name removes that side
> of things.
> 
> 
> So in summary, beginner-improvement is my proposal for the new keyword.
I'm not going to bikeshed on the name :-)

But I would suggest we generally indicate why we're adding the tag to 
any given bug.

For example I might see a bug reported against the SH which I think may 
be painful to fix on the SH due to characteristics of its architecture, 
but the bug may still show up on say RISC-V with a clear path to fixing 
on that ISA.

One might argue I should create another bug (and sometimes I have done 
that).  But I wouldn't be surprised if we found that over time ideas to 
fix on one ISA may be relevant to approaches taken on others and the like.

So I'm in general agreement on finding a consistent way to tag these 
things and would really like those of us who scour BZ to record thoughts 
if we think some of these are junior engineer applicable (and to be 
clear, I'm certainly guilty of adding a personal tag without indicating 
why I added that personal tag for educational BZs).

jeff