quick bug days wrap up

This is a quick wrap-up entry for Plasma Bug Days which was held over the last two days. First, we accomplished a lot. I mean a lot. The first goal was to drop into third place on the Weekly Bug Report. We accomplished that on the first day and so moved onto another goal suggested by one of the participants: have fewer reports open than we did six months ago. We also accomplished that. Now we have a new goal: break 1000. We're just 120 reports away from that goal right now.

Today has been relatively slow going as it isn't an official Bug Day so just a few showed up to do bug triage today. Quite promisingly, though, some people from the Bug Days showed up today again. I do hope all of them continue to be involved and help with the bug wrangling as their efforts were just fantastic this weekend.

I also set about to fix some of the older and more annoying issues in some of the more commonly used parts of Plasma Desktop. Many commits later, and many already-fixed (along with some won't or can't fixes, too), and the bug report count has dropped yet further. 4.8 is going to be a fantastic release.

Yesterday was really invigorating, as well: even more people showed up for day 2 than for day 1. That's understandable as it was the weekend. Together we mowed through large quantities of bug reports.

We also pulled together some Plasma bug hunting documentation for newcomers. It was very clear that handing out bugzilla account upgrades to those who took the time to show up was really worthwhile as well: it empowered people who may not have otherwise asked to help out, and boy did they ever.

I used to host bug days sem-regularly, but with project growth and life business they fell to the wayside. I'm happy to say, though, that bug days will be a regular part of Plasma life again, with at least one such event hosted every release cycle.

Our long term goal is to get down to a stable 400-500 open defect reports, and I think that is achievable. We have worked through 600 reports in just 2 weeks, over half of them just this weekend. So it is possible.

The results of a clean bug database are that it becomes far, far easier for developers to identify what needs attention. It also helps our involved users know that, yes, we still have a pulse and do care and pay attention, something that sometimes gets missed.

I now have a nice parcel of "junior job" bugs and a handful of "critical issues for 4.8" in hand as a result of Bug Days ... and a really good feeling about things to boot.

plasma bug day 1

Today was the first of two Plasma Bug Days we're hosting this week in #plasma on irc.freenode.net. It started at noon UTC and people started rolling in. With the help of Ann Marie and Marco, we got the volunteer bug hunters up to speed and working with a high degree of effectivity.

So far (and we're not yet done for the day!) we've closed 62 reports. There were a number of fixes applied for 4.8 (and some for the upcoming 4.7.4 as well) as a result, and duplicates or already fixed bugs were also being caught. A good number of crashers were identified and fixed, and one vastly annoying bug where a panel would mutate and take over the whole screen when the screen count changed was also killed. That's pretty decent for a day's effort.

Big thanks and kudos to all those who participated so far, including asraniel, thijs, BrummbQ, mck182, emilsedgh, mrrub and Adaptee. (Hope I didn't miss anyone, if I did: mea culpa! and let me know :)

We'll be at it again all day tomorrow, so come join us in #plasma and have some fun with us getting Plasma into great shape!

plasma bug days reminder

Just a quick reminder to all those interested: Plasma Bug Days start today at noon UTC and run until tomorrow night. You are invited to join us test and triage reports (no coding skills required!), participate in live bug wrangling workshops and, for the coders out there, fix bugs that the triage horde identifies.

They center of activity for this is #plasma on irc.freenode.net. As they say: come one, come all! :)