Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Marina Glancy -
Number of replies: 14
Picture of Core developers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Moodle Workplace team Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Moodle HQ invites all developers to be part of the Fix-a-Moodle-bug project in November 2016.

The Fix-a-Moodle-bug project aims to highlight the important contribution that the Moodle community continues to make to our open source project, and to bring attention to our tracker.

Fix a bug this November and get a specially designed “Moodle contributor t-shirt” and a moodle.org badge.

This project is part of the development process for Moodle.

Find out more or get involved in the Fix-a-Moodle-bug project - https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Fix_a_Moodle_bug

Average of ratings: Useful (5)
In reply to Marina Glancy

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Germán Valero -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

Hi Marina,

I am not a developer, but I found that the issue in MDL-56049 has a comment from the original reporter that states that the issue is solved by... I have written an English translation and I requested that this issue be closed as "not an issue".

My own 2 cents...

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Germán Valero

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Thanks German - I just closed it.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Marina Glancy

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Tim Hunt -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

This is a really great idea.

There is just one flaw. I've got an enthusiastic colleague who has already done his two bug fixes. Does he have to wait until next Tuesday to click the Submit for peer review button? Since you have publicly announced this already, perhaps you should start counting from now?

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Tim Hunt

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Tomasz Muras -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Translators

The same here - I'm convincing few people to join the effort and we want to start tomorrow. You better hurry up with picking the issues, they may be gone soon... smile

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Tomasz Muras

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Marina Glancy -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Moodle Workplace team Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
There are two reasons we announced it before the start of the project. First, HQ is really busy now with pre-release polishing and won't really be reviewing much before November. Second, this pre-project period is the best time for non-developers in community to review information on the tracker for the issues they are aware of. I have already received lots of notifications from tracker when people updated affected versions or commented that issue was already resolved elsewhere. Bringing attention of everybody in the community to the tracker is also very important part of this project.

So yes, I would recommend to wait until 1 Nov to send for PR. This will also be fair to everybody else who read the announcement elsewhere and will start participating from the set date.

Thank you for your contributions!
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Marina Glancy

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Peter West -

It would be useful to know which bugs were being worked on.  Is there any way of indicating this, or should developers make a note here.  For example, which are the bugs that have already been patched?

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Peter West

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Eric Merrill -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

First, if there is no developer assigned, it's basically fair game to claim.

If there is a developer, but there has been no ticket activity in a long while, and you want to have at it, you can post asking if you can take it from the dev. Personally (not policy, just my personal MO) if I don't hear anything back for another week, I'll steal the ticket and do my work.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Eric Merrill

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Marina Glancy -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Moodle Workplace team Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Yes, developer who starts working on the issue should assign it to him/her.

There can be some issues that were already assigned for a long time and developers did not unassign themslves earlier. If you suspect that it's the case, look at the history of the issue changes.

Also another case are new developers who have never contributed to moodle yet and do not have a permission to assign issues to themselves. They can simply comment on the issue that they are working on it. Please don't steal such issues (at least not straight away).

For people who want to work on issues but do not have a link "Assign to me": Permission to set yourself is assignee is the same as permission to send for peer review. You only get added to "developers" group on moodle tracker after one of your issues is integrated. Before that please just add a comment with a link to the git branch and testing instructions and somebody else will send the issue for peer review for you,.

(I will also add this to the https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Fix_a_Moodle_bug#Questions_and_answers )

Average of ratings: Useful (2)
In reply to Marina Glancy

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Eiz Eddin Al Katrib -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi,

I have not contributed to Moodle development before and I would like to start contributing.

I have commented on a couple of issues and submitted links to my fixes on my public git repo.

How long will it take until someone checks them or submit them for peer review? will I get notified with that?

These are my contributions:

MDL-24951

MDL-42977
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Eiz Eddin Al Katrib

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Marina Glancy -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Moodle Workplace team Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Hello EizEddin,

Glad to hear you decided to contribute to Moodle. Once you comment on tracker issue you automatically start "watching" it. Any future comments or modifications of this issue will be emailed to you.

Regarding the peer review waiting time - we are a little flat out in HQ with upcoming 3.2 release and surprisingly big amount of community bug fixes so the waiting time may be bigger than usual. We normally try to start reviewing within three weeks.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Marina Glancy

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Henning Bostelmann -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Marina

A really good idea! I think it sounds fun - and who wouldn't want a shirt? - so I just wanted to spend a few hours today to work on some issues and come up with some patches. 

I jumped right into the middle of the list, went along one by one and started looking for bugs that were amenable to a fix. Well, eventually I found two of them. However, on the way I came across many, many more that were not actually needing someone to write code, but that were either invalid, or incomplete, or needing a decision that I can't make (see list below). I can't claim it's a proper random sample, but I didn't skip many while going along!

Maybe what is really needed is a "Triage a Moodle bug" event? (Doesn't sound that much fun, however.)  Or maybe clearer instructions what to do / whom to refer to?

Best wishes
  Henning

Here the list, just for information and with no claim to completeness:

  • Unclear whether a bug:

  • Likely a bug but not up for fixing:
    • Duplicate / Fix being developed elsewhere: MDL-56434
    • Fix present but not properly submitted: MDL-43036
    • Desired resolution unclear, or ongoing policy discussion: MDL-55943, MDL-56066
    • Not related to Moodle core but to contrib code: MDL-55705


Average of ratings: Useful (2)
In reply to Henning Bostelmann

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Davo Smith -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

That very last one sounds like a Moodle core bug - it may be manifesting due to a contrib plugin, but $PAGE->url should always be called before require_login (or require_course_login). This is so that if the user needs to be redirected to the login page, the 'offical' URL to return to has been set before the redirect takes place (this is a page that it is probably unlikely to arrive at without being logged in, so it will rarely be a direct issue, but still should be fixed, if not already done so).


Average of ratings: -
In reply to Henning Bostelmann

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Marina Glancy -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Moodle Workplace team Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Hi Henning,

thank you very much for the detailed analysis. There are over 3000 open "Bug" issues in Moodle tracker, and it is next to impossible to triage them all. I really would like to see more comments on the issues about whether they are still valid, are really bugs or improvements, when the scope is unclear, etc.

"Triage a Moodle bug" that you are suggesting is already implemented as combination of 3.1 as affected version and difficulty not being set (or set to something else than Difficult). I will go through issues that you listed and make sure that they are either clearly worded or change them to Improvement or mark as Difficult.

Community triage of existing bug reports is as important part of this "Fix a Moodle bug" project as actually fixing them.

TL;DR: If you have something to say about existing issues - please comment on the issues themselves - you will greatly help Moodle triage. TIA !

Average of ratings: Useful (2)
In reply to Marina Glancy

Re: Calling all developers! Fix a Moodle bug and get a Moodle contributor t-shirt

by Marina Glancy -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Moodle Workplace team Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Thanks a lot for everybody who participated in the project.

It turned out that Moodle HQ was busier than we expected during November because of Boost polishing and we did not have time to review or even send for review everything on time. Since many participants are not yet in the developers group on tracker and can not send issues for peer review themselves, the most important date is when you actually comment with a git branch link and not when the issue is sent for peer review.

If you have participated but you don't see your issue in one of these lists - please let me know in the personal message on moodle.org:
https://tracker.moodle.org/issues/?filter=19507
https://tracker.moodle.org/issues/?filter=19554

Thanks again and wait for this t-shirt letter soon (I will use your tracker e-mail).
Average of ratings: -