Question thread #52

[pauamma]

It's time for another question thread!

The rules:

- You may ask any dev-related question you have in a comment. (It doesn't even need to be about Dreamwidth, although if it involves a language/library/framework/database Dreamwidth doesn't use, you will probably get answers pointing that out and suggesting a better place to ask.)
- You may also answer any question, using the guidelines given in To Answer, Or Not To Answer and in this comment thread.

Comments

Aggressive claiming?

[apparentparadox]

What's the etiquette on claiming a bug (especially as a beginner)?

Should you put some effort into looking at the code and making sure that you know enough about how to fix it (and you know enough about how to generate test cases for that particular bug) that you really are likely to be able to fix it? This would ensure that if a bug is claimed, then it is likely to get fixed.

Or is it OK to just "claim" a bug that looks interesting from the bug report, and then spend some number of days (let's say a week) trying to fix it and possibly decide that it's out of your scope/interest and then "unclaim" it? This could lead to making bugs unavailable to others to fix until the original claimer gives up.

Does it matter if the bug is really old or if the bug is on the "most wanted" list? I could imagine that one should only claim something from "most wanted" if you're really likely to fix it quickly, for example.

Re: Aggressive claiming?

[pauamma]

I'd say either is fine, really. Also, if you feel stuck or discouraged, you may want to pay a visit to #dreamwidth-dev on IRC (see http://wiki.dreamwidth.net/wiki/index.php/IRC_help and http://wiki.dreamwidth.net/wiki/index.php/IRC#.23dreamwidth-dev) so we can cheer you up and or help you get unstuck. Or, you could ask questions on the bug itself without/before claiming it. (If you choose that route, be sure not to use words like "claim", "claiming", or "claimed", as IIRC that's what our bot looks for in comments to assign bugs.)

I don't think it matters if the bug is old or on the most-wanted list.

Finally, welcome to Dreamwidth hacking. Be sure to look at and submit your CLA (see http://wiki.dreamwidth.net/wiki/index.php/Contributor_Licensing_Agreement) if you haven't already, as Dreamwidth needs that in order to be able to accept your contribution.

Re: Aggressive claiming?

[denise]

Just to echo what Pau said: it's totally normal to claim something if you think it looks interesting and then decide later on that it's not for you! (I do it all the time.) A lot of time something that looks easy turns out to be a nightmare...

Just comment on the bug and let us know if it looks like you aren't going to be able to get to it and we can unassign it. (The bot doesn't handle unclaiming, alas.)

DreamHack tools?

[apparentparadox]

I haven't scoured through the documentation, but are there tools to use with a dreamhack to bulk load/dump a dreamhack? It would seem useful, rather than having to manually add enough users and posts and comments to be able to have some set of files that just could be bulk added via some tool to provide enough data to work on.

Re: DreamHack tools?

[pauamma]

There's one to create users (see http://wiki.dreamwidth.net/wiki/index.php/Script:_create-users), but I'm not aware of any for creating entries and comments. That would sound useful, though.

Re: DreamHack tools?

[azurelunatic]

Dreamhacks can now import from Dreamwidth, but I don't think there tools built around that yet.