Bugzilla, just don’t do it.

Jorge won’t like this. I ran across a bug in Mono’s implementation of XSD today. Jorge always tells me to file bugs, so I attempted to do so. XSD is the executable which generates classes or typed datasets for mono from xml schema definition files. I found mono’s bugzilla after remembering that it was ximians bugzilla. I fetched my password because I had long forgotten it. I logged in. I queried to make sure this bug was not already reported. I started a new bug. I filled out the bug report with good, detailed information, steps to recreate it, my environment, etc.

The next part is where I went wrong. I assumed (uses assume, I am a user in this case, programmers should handle these assumptions). Yes, I assumed that I could put something good for the keyword field in the bugzilla Enter Bug form. I assumed that it would barf on me. It barfed on me. No problem just click back and remove that field. NO PROBLEM!!! Click back cleared the form data! I know it wasn’t my browser doing this. I can click back all the time on other sites. It is 31 days and a few hours from 2006 and usability is still the number one issue with open source. I’m not talking ubuntu desktop usability for my mom. I’m talking bug tracking usability for developers. Sure, all I have to do is spend another 5 minutes filling out the form again. But am I going to do that? Every other time in my life I’ve said fuck it, and I’ve simply closed that browser tab. It comes down to Jerry McGuire. Help me, Help you. Help me, Help you! HELP ME, HELP YOU!!! Even 2 minutes to fill out the form again is 2 minutes too many! So what am I going to do?

Well, I’ll fill out the form which sent me on an anger rampage. I’ll buy a new ipod because upon the form blanking out I threw my brand new 100GB iPod with Video into a wall and it shattered into 1000 (I counted) pieced. (yes, it doesn’t exist, i’m lying, I didn’t throw an ipod)

I’m considering filing a bug about bugzilla itself. *sigh*

3 thoughts on “Bugzilla, just don’t do it.”

  1. i hate it when stuff like that happens. you try to improve product A and get thwarted by tool B, the software you are using to help improve product A. stuff like that happens around here all the time. :-\

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