Re: [Fresco-devel] Explanation of relation between bugs/tasks? (in issues.f.o)

On Thu, Sep 19, 2002 at 08:59:44AM -0400, Stefan Seefeld wrote:
> 
> I would try to keep the schema as simple as possible, as in 90% of
> the cases these relations are sufficient. Can you describe a typical
> situation where a task depends on a bug ? Would it be possible to
> describe such a situation with the above relations ('task foo solves
> bug bar that depends on bug baz', say) ?

Task depends on bug: means that this task cannot be accomplished until
this bug is fixed -- the bug "blocks" completion of the task.  Eg, the
task "Add MICO support to build-system" might depend on the bug "Typo
in orb_chooser.m4: choose_orb ignores all arguments but the first".
You _could_ model this by creating a bug "build-system does not
support MICO".

Bug depends on task: This happens all the time -- it means that some
planned activity has to be completed before the bug can be solved.
It's different from task solves bug, because the task here is a
precondition to finding a solution, not a solution itself.  For
example, a number of the bugs against the issue tracker should
probably be marked as depending on task37, "Get our roundup
code/templates into CVS".  Or for another example, bug39 ("Bad link to
Fresco tutorial on web-page") should depend on task36 ("Find a place
for the "Fresco-vintage" site").  This seems like the sort of
dependency that comes up a lot, and you want a way to keep track of.
Again, you _could_ model these by creating bugs "roundup
code/templates are not in CVS", or "There's no place on fresco.org for
the old Fresco site".

I don't much like the idea of creating bugs like this, though.  (Or
the alternate solution, creating "solves" tasks for each of the bugs
in the above scenarios.)  It's a silly kluge that's only useful to
work around limitations in the system.  You don't get any more/better
information because you entered a given issue twice, once as a bug and
once as a task -- in fact, it makes things more confusing.  And if you
want to argue that tasks and bugs are so similar that any particular
item can be switched from one to the other with ease, then I ask why
we even have the distinction between them.

-- Nathaniel

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