[Libreoffice-qa] Excel Function Meta Bug?

[Eike Rathke]

Hi Joel,

On Friday, 2012-07-13 07:46:36 -0700, Joel Madero wrote:

> Thanks for responding Eike. Summary is that I was bug triaging and came
> across a bug that had a list of functions in excel that are currently not
> supported in LO.

Cross-reading the dev list I found
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46918
with a nice attachment listing functions.

> 1. Leave excel bugs as is, keep that bug open with the list of functions,
> in the comments I'll confirm individual functions as problematic in LO
> (harder to track progress, harder for devs to pick up individual functions
> out of the list)

Better close the bug that otherwise would live for months and years and
end up with 300 comments or so that no one would read anyway.. better
add the there attached list (that would be outdated already after the
first function was implemented) to the wiki from which individual bugs
or implementation notes could be linked then. Such "implement dozens of
features" bugs weren't helpful at any time.

> 2. Leave excel bugs as is, close bug that has so many functions in one,
> tell user that we need them as individual bug reports (easier to track
> progress this way)

We really don't need dozens of bugs open one for each function not
implemented. I'd rather prefer to open a bug for a specific function
only once a developer starts to implement it so we can (discuss if
necessary and) refer it in the commit summary when done. Also, if users
open bugs for functions they actually miss in their daily work it helps
us more than doing that ourself in advance for all functions we know.

> 3. Make a meta excel bug just for the functions, then I'll create
> individual bugs for each bug listed by the user and make the meta bug
> dependent on them (similar to most annoying)

See above about my take on creating individual bugs, plus I don't see an
advantage in having a meta bug for this unless it would be there to have
a quick listing of its dependents.

> 4. Make a meta excel bug, separate the function bug into individual bug and
> make meta bug dependent on ALL excel bugs (not just the functions one from
> the original FDO)

We might also use something like an interoperability whiteboard keyword
or some such to query for instead.

Well, you may have deduced from my answers that I'm not a friend of meta
bugs, unless they are there to mail a pointer to the dev list like the
most annoying meta bugs. In short, it's ok for me if QA wants to create
a meta bug to track existing things, but opening a bunch of bugs to be
tracked just for the sake of having everything in that we _might_ want
to implement over time of years doesn't make sense to me.

> Michael CC'ed you on it because he said you're currently the go to for
> excel compatibility. My argument is that anything to make it easier to be
> fully compatible with Excel is a plus if the goal is to convince MS Office
> users that we can provide a better product than MS can.

Specifically when having dozens of bugs open for functions that only
a very minority of users would use anyway it would be counterproductive
pointing potential users to deficiencies they otherwise would even never
have noticed or heard of ;-)

  Eike

-- 
LibreOffice Calc developer. Number formatter stricken i18n transpositionizer.
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