July 22, 2010

Why having short bug queues is good

A lot of Gentoo teams have bug queues. Each herd, the security team, the arch teams, and each individual developer. It's better when these queues are short, but not only because it looks better and solves problems that people have.

Long bug lists tend to grow over time. They're harder to navigate, it's just easier to skip an easy to fix bug, or forget to answer user's question. Even browsing such list takes time. Recently the x86 team has reduced the queue size to 10 bugs or so. It's now much easier to manage, and stabilizations take a lot less time. Also, we can pay more attention to issues that prevent or delay stabilizations.

So the summary is... keep your bug queues short, and don't be afraid to put an entry on staffing needs page if needed.

Oh, and if you're a user looking for a way to contribute, helping shorten someone's bug list is a great way to do so.