From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 4952 invoked by alias); 30 Nov 2014 22:00:05 -0000 Mailing-List: contact zsh-workers-help@zsh.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk X-No-Archive: yes List-Id: Zsh Workers List List-Post: List-Help: X-Seq: 33827 Received: (qmail 13873 invoked from network); 30 Nov 2014 22:00:01 -0000 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.2 (2011-06-06) on f.primenet.com.au X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW, SPF_HELO_PASS autolearn=ham version=3.3.2 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: zsh-workers@zsh.org From: Jan Larres Subject: Re: PATCH: overwrite mode shouldn't replace newlines Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 10:42:34 +1300 Message-ID: References: <13244.1417305861@thecus.kiddle.eu> <547A719F.6000400@eastlink.ca> <141130112401.ZM28710@torch.brasslantern.com> <547B7649.4020509@eastlink.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: yass.opencloud.co.nz User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.2.0 In-Reply-To: <547B7649.4020509@eastlink.ca> On 01/12/14 08:55, Ray Andrews wrote: > On 11/30/2014 11:24 AM, Bart Schaefer wrote: >> Like most open-source projects dating from the late 80s, zsh relied on >> users to test and report bugs. There has never been enough volunteer >> manpower for a dedicated all-code-paths testing regimen, so a bug that >> a real user never encounters will only rarely be fixed. > That is demonstrably the case. But as a guy who's done some testing in a project > I can't help but notice that trying overstrike mode would be one of the first > things I'd have done. It's another cultural adjustment for me. Open Source projects, unless they're run by a company, rarely have dedicated testers whose only job it is to look for bugs. Sometimes people decide to spend some time on that due to a sense of duty, but generally it makes more sense to spend time on areas that actually benefit the most people, or that interest the contributor personally, instead of trying to find every last bug (which is impossible anyway). The fact that this bug apparently wasn't discovered until now or at least not deemed important enough by users to report it shows that not that many people would have benefited from a comprehensive testing approach here. Of course doing more testing is generally a good thing, but there is also a cost/benefit factor to consider, especially for volunteer-run projects. -Jan