linux-kernel - Re: Reporting bugs and bisection

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Message-ID: <20080416195503.GR1677@cs181133002.pp.htv.fi>
Date:	Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:55:03 +0300
From:	Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org>
To:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	sverre@...belier.nl, git@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, jmorris@...ei.org,
	viro@...iv.linux.org.uk, w@....eu, david@...g.hm,
	sclark46@...thlink.net, johnpol@....mipt.ru, rjw@...k.pl,
	tilman@...p.cc, Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu, lkml@....ca,
	davem@...emloft.net, jesper.juhl@...il.com,
	yoshfuji@...ux-ipv6.org, jeff@...zik.org, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
	davidn@...idnewall.com
Subject: Re: Reporting bugs and bisection

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 12:02:47PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:26:34 +0300
> Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 02:15:22PM +0200, Sverre Rabbelier wrote:
> > > I'm not subscribed to the kernel mailing list, so please include me in
> > > the cc if you don't reply to the git list (which I am subscribed to).
> > > 
> > > Git is participating in Google Summer of Code this year and I've
> > > proposed to write a 'git statistics' command. This command would allow
> > > the user to gather data about a repository, ranging from "how active
> > > is dev x" to "what did x work on in the last 3 weeks". It's main
> > > feature however, would be an algorithm that ranks commits as being
> > > either 'buggy', 'bugfix' or 'enhancement'. (There are several clues
> > > that can aid in determining this, a commit msg along the lines of
> > > "fixes ..." being the most obvious.)
> > >...
> 
> Sounds like an interesting project.
> 
> > At least with the data we have currently in git it's impossible to 
> > figure that out automatically.
> > 
> > E.g. if you look at commit f743d04dcfbeda7439b78802d35305781999aa11 
> > (ide/legacy/q40ide.c: add MODULE_LICENSE), how could you determine 
> > automatically that it is a bugfix, and the commit that introduced
> > the bug?
> > 
> > You can always get some data, but if you want to get usable statistics 
> > you need explicit tags in the commits, not some algorithm that tries 
> > to guess.
> 
> Well yes.  One outcome of the project would be to tell us what changes we'd
> need to make to our processes to make such data gathering more effective.
> 
> Of course, we may not actually implement such changes.  That would depend
> upon how useful the output is to us.

That you can add this information through tags is clear, but according
to his SoC application that's not what he wants to do.

According to his application he wants to determine automatically whether 
a commit was a fix or whether a commit introduced a bug by doing stuff 
like tracking whether a changed line was modified again shortly after a 
commit.

This plan of him will simply not result in accurate numbers.

Sure, you will get some numbers, but if anyone would e.g. wrongly accuse 
me that 2% of my commits last year introduced bugs I would get 
***really*** angry.

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

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