Re: State of DBD::mysql maintenance

On 27/06/2013 22:22, Tim Bunce wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 01:17:32PM -0700, Robert Dodier wrote:
>> Hi, I think I have run into this bug;
>> https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=71555
>>
>> I am working on a 64-bit Windows Server 2008 system
>> and 32-bit Strawberry Perl (32-bit since it appears that
>> there is a module I need which doesn't work with 64-bit).
>> perl/vendor/lib/DBD/mysql.pm says $VERSION = '4.022' in it.
>>
>> Does anyone know of a patch or workaround for bug #71555?
> I was amazed and dissapointed that such a serious apparent bug
> has gone without even a comment for over 18 months.
>
> Then I looked at the RT queue for DBD::mysql
> https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=DBD-mysql
> and felt sad at the apparent neglect. 127 bugs (7 critical)
> of which over half are still 'New'.
and of those I see:

o a load of supplied patches and many have been applied by MICHIELB to 
github
o quite a number of duplicates
o a few that look like they may be misunderstandings or errors on the 
part of the reporter
o 4 items marked as wishlist/enhancements - there are obviously more not 
marked as such
o some which seem to be fixed but not marked as such e.g. rt60085
o 70+ rts over 2 year old

Of the criticals some look like they might be fixed but the reporter has 
gone away e.g., the 6 year old 19091.
The 2 year old critical 68374 looks to contain a fix by the reporter. 
68169 is marked
CHORNY [...] cpan.org - Fixed in 4.020 added. 72501 is --testuser switch 
to Makefile.PL does not work on windows (not what I'd classify as 
critical). 76835 contains a pull request with fix. So by my reckoning 
that only leaves 2 critical issues that need investigating and the 
others are fixed or not critical.

It looks to me like a little house keeping and a new release would 
seriously dent the queue.

As for the really old reports that situation existed with DBD::Orace a 
few years ago. John, Yanick and I had a concerted effort to clear up the 
old ones but in some cases they could not be reproduced and the reporter 
a) was not contactable b) wasn't using DBD::Oracle any more. In these 
cases I didn't see any point in keeping them open and a small few were 
written off. However, it was amazing what a concerted effort managed in 
a few weeks.


> On the other hand, I see the code is on github (along with 13 other bug
> reports) at https://github.com/CaptTofu/DBD-mysql and Patrick seems
> active in recent months.
>
> I'd like to know why there hasn't been more activity on this and the
> other critical bugs.
>
> Do the DBD::mysql maintainers need more help?
>
> If you're a DBD::mysql user and care about the future of the code,
> please help out.
>
> Tim.

I've no idea if the DBD::mysql maintainers need more help. When I was 
actively using DBD::mysql (a lot of years ago) I supplied patches to 
Patrick and they were applied. Not everyone is capable of supplying 
patches. I'm guessing DBD::mysql is probably the most used DBD and as 
mysql is so easily installed by most package managers I guessed a lot 
more "inexperienced" users are using DBD::mysql and that might be 
leading to a load of wrong rts but the last one rejected was 3 years ago.

Three years ago (I think it was just after a LPW), I suggested having a 
DBD team where DBD maintainers (and anyone else who was capable) could 
pitch in to help keep the rt queues down - there wasn't much interest. I 
think I repeated it again about 1 year ago with a similar result 
(although that may have only been on irc). Now most DBDs are in git it 
should be a lot easier. I also see around 25 people on #dbi regularly 
these days whereas 2 years ago it was probably around 5, if that. I get 
a feeling there is a lot of potential there if it can be stirred up a 
bit. I wish I could have attended the last QA hackathon as I would have 
been happy to work on rt queues for any of the DBDs I thought I could 
have helped with. I wonder if we could organise a DBI/DBD hackathon even 
if it was one done remotely.

Anyway, here is my offer to DBD maintainers and in particular DBD::mysql 
maintainers.  If you want some help with rt queues in particular whether 
that be simply some house keeping on the queue itself (I'd need 
privilege to do that bit - cpan id MJEVANS) or bug finding/fixing I'm 
prepared to help out where I can - just ask. For reasons I'm not going 
to go into here I will have more spare time over the next month and the 
DBD::ODBC queue is almost non existent and DBD::Oracle queue is almost 
under control so get it while you can.

Martin
--
Martin J. Evans
Wetherby, UK