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From: Joshua Pollak <pardsbane@offthehill.org>
Organization: offTheHill
To: gentoo-dev@gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Proposed Issuetracker via PEST
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 12:56:50 -0500
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> How will users select a package in the Bug Tracking System if there
> are hundreds or even thousands of packages?  Do they have to scroll
> through endless lists?

Well, I would break it down so you choose category, then package. That should 
make it short enough to search by.

> The Debian BTS uses electronic mail.  And there are at least two
> programs, e.g. reportbug, which is written in Python, that end-users
> can use to send bug reports.

Reportbug is usually how I've worked with Debbugs, and its pretty handy, but 
if you don't remember exactly how to spell a package name, it can be a 
serious pain. Also, browsing through all the other bugs to match one up with 
yours can be a bit of a pain, although its a nice feature.

Anyway, I suppose Debbugs isn't a bad option, but I am really, really, really 
repulsed by its web interface. I agree the web interface isn't always the 
best one for entering bugs, but I think a clean web interface is the easiest 
way to update bug status and keep track of what bugs should be worked on and 
where they are in progress.

Debbugs search options and the search display are amazingly annoying... It 
doesn't categorize the searches in any meaningful way, or allow you to adjust 
the categorization. I think a system like PEST or ReportBugs, where it is 
categorized, and you can choose the sort method is very important and useful. 
Also, because Debian's search doesn't show the bugs in a tabular format, its 
very hard to survey the returned bugs and see whats going on.

-Josh