use Perl

• rollup (Score:2)

  by Matts (1087) on 2006.09.18 2:16 (#50165) Journal

  I tend to roll up bug fixes to "when I have time". My life is busy, and I do this stuff for free, and your tone is a little ungrateful. I don't like it much when people tell me I'm taking too long to fix bugs in free code.

  Reply to This

  • Re: (Score:1)

    by jk2addict (4946)

    While I understand you and brian d foys responses and agree sometimes the nasty tone doesn't help anyone, I understand the posters frustrations as well.
    
    If it was a matter of an internal application where you can just patch and go, then the issue isn't so bad. However, if the module is a prereq for another module getting pushed to CPAN, maybe even a major release, it's pretty frustrating having to either put a hold on development, wait for a takeover and rerelease, or fork to get the job done.
    
    I lucked out bi
    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Matts (1087)

      What's interesting is it's very rare for people to realise that they can "fix" the bugs they find by subclassing if it's that urgent. Admittedly it's not always the case, but when it is, it's often more appropriate than getting annoyed at the author.
      • Re: (Score:2)

        by brian_d_foy (44)

        Indeed, I'm devoting an entire chapter of Mastering Perl to dealing with absent module maintainers [pair.com]. I certainly know the pain of many approaches :)
        
        
  • Re: (Score:1)

    by iburrell (4155)

    Thanks for fixing bugs (and writing modules in the first place). Fixing bugs is a lot of work and it isn't fun work. Doing them in batches, even yearly, is okay as long as it happens. I am actually not asking that maintainers should drop everything and fix bugs. And they don't have a duty to do the work on their spare time. I am much more interested in getting a response: "Thanks for the patch", "I'll look at it later", or even "That is stupid". And knowing that it will be worked on someday.
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Aristotle (5147)

      Yeah, I agree. It’s the impenetrable silence that is a bother. The type of response matters little, as long as there is one.

      Heck, even rejecting the bug saying “I don’t care, get lost” would be acceptable. At least then I know not to care anymore either and can proceed to evaluate my last-resort options (fork, switch modules, etc) with confidence that such was indeed necessary.
    • Re: (Score:2)

      by brian_d_foy (44)

      In the one case you cite, Gisle, the author or the module, did respond initially.