Asa Dotzler: Firefox and more

Hi Asa,

Since I run the Internet Explorer Feedback site, I figure I'll comment here. You aren't going to get much closer to the source than me.

Your ideas about the bug numbers are based on some problematic assumptions. The connect site, as a whole, shares bug id numbers. I would assume that the gaps are because of this. We certainly not making large numbers of IE bugs entered disappear. Unless it is a private bug, any bug is viewable and the only way it is resolved is an actual resolution action on the bug (even if that is "By Design" or "No repro" for it). We don't generally just delete things. None of our bug systems are set up that way.

It is called "Internet Explorer Feedback" because I titled it that and no one in my management chain objected. I had other, more humorous, suggestions that didn't cause as much levity in others. :-)

You mention 'Oh, and in the introduction it says that "This is your opportunity to speak directly with the Product Team" (emphasis mine.)'

I'm not sure what point you are making here by bolding 'product team.' The product team is the team that works on IE, from specifications through development, testing, and release. We are the IE team. The point here is that these bugs don't do to some third party to filter, they go to us. Realistically, I and my team will be going through the bugs as a filtering mechanism to sort out the duplicates, non actionable or insulting bugs before individual feature teams see them. From that point on, they are treated like any other bugs on the product.

Yes, we do have another bug database that we work from and the Connect site will only be searchable for issues entered by means of the Connect site. This is both how the site software functions (there is a synching mechanism between the databases) and for security purposes since the IE team works within the main Windows bug database. When the IE team as a whole sees the bug, it will still be in the context of all of the other bugs though they are visibly flagged as to their point of origin if anyone looks (which they should). The only trick, as I mentioned in my comments on my blog post announcing the site, is that the comments that get added to the bugs on the Connect site are specifically added by the team members through a separate tab in our interface so Connect site members will only see data explicitly added to the bug for communication back to the site. This is also a design feature of the Connect software and controls the churn on the bugs and randomness in comments from the Microsoft side.

The Connect software is in active development and will be getting progressively better. This is fairly new software and a replacement for previous efforts (such as the site used by the Visual Studio team). I'm hoping for a smoother experience over time.

Your questions:

1) "Will IE developers and QA be participating in this public forum or is it just a one-way system?"

They will be participating as the bugs will show up on their normal bug queries along with other bugs. People will have to get used to communicating directly with the public through the Comments portion though so I wouldn't be surprised if there is a learning curve there.

2) "Will Microsoft employees file bugs in this database?"

No. This is a site for end uses and external parties. We have (for many many years) our own custom bug logging and resolution tools internal to Microsoft that communicate directly with our bug databases for various projects. Microsoft employees will continue to log and review bugs in this manner.

3) "Will there be any technical discussion in these bugs or is this solely a non-technical forum?"

That is up to the developers, program managers, and testers who work on the bugs. I would expect that technical bugs will get more technical discussion but it will happen on a case by case basis.

4) 'Why is the "IE doesn't pass acid2 test" bug report "Resolved as By Design";-)'

Because it is "By Design" for this release, as we informed everyone many months ago. Active bugs are bugs currently under investigation with a potential to be immediately "fixed" or at least queued for fixing in this milestone or release. That "bug" won't be fixed in this release and we could debate opinions about whether the Acid2 test is a measure of more than compliance with one person's wishlist of favorite features. Since IE is platform complete now and fixing bugs through shipping and certain Acid2 required pieces are not in this platform AND the IE team has discussed this many times on the IEBlog and in comments on this, I doubt much more needs to be said.

In other words, gimme a break, Asa, I've got hundreds of other bugs to review and a blog to run. :-)

Al Billings
Bug and Blog Monkey
IE Project Manager

I've tested the feedback system (and I filed this acid2 bug -- I'll keep calling it a bug ;-).

Firstly -- not a surprise -- the system is of course not as open as bugzilla. It's also by far less usable, as it lacks a couple of basic features, most important the ability to categorize bugs. Even with those few submissions it's becoming obscure.

I think it's obvious that the MS Connect team produced really bad software, it's buggy all the way. But there will be improvements, I assume.

You'll get some more impressions if you read the comments:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/03/24/560095.aspx

I'm really sorry, but criticizing Microsoft's bug reporting system (or whatever it's supposed to be) when you have this usability abomination in your own backyard?

I love Firefox and use it all the time, but you might want to think about the shortcomings of Bugzilla before you start throwing rocks at other people's systems. I've been contributing to Firefox for years (I'm one of the people who build optimized builds of Firefox for Mac systems) and one of the biggest PITAs throughout this whole time is how incredibly user-hostile Bugzilla is, especially in the search area.

If Bugzilla is meant for developers, then I retract my criticisms. But if it's meant as a way for the general public that is testing Mozilla products to file bugs, it's in serious need of a redesign.

Neil, don't be duplicitous.

If you go to bugzilla.mozilla.org it has a simple interface, that as far as I've seen, does a fine job for searching. The query.cgi
a) only going to appear for people who select "advanced search"
and
b) frankly useful when I want to say "hmm, I wonder what moderately popular javascript engine bugs have been open for a few years" ( so I can see if they are still issues ).

As a side note, when reporting a bug ( which would be the most common path for someone to take ), you do not go near anything like that either, and in fact go through something that has rather good design as far as I've experinced.

d

Dante -

That many people are using bugzilla to file bugs is true, but for anyone who actually tries to make an effort to make sure they're not filing a duplicate bug (which Bugzilla makes one of the primary steps when filing a new one) it's absolutely terrible. Maybe it's "rather good design" for you, but I've had numerous reports from people using my builds that finding bugs in Bugzilla is at best, complex, and at worst, nearly impossible.

Neil's right :-/

I must say I agree with both Neil and Asa here. Neighter system is as good as it could be. Bugzilla has a cluttered interface and even after using it many times I still find myself confused over what things do and where I find the basic navigation. Internet Explorer Feedback has the problem that you need to both login, accept a license agreement and then register to even look at bugs. No system is perfect but the two above has serious issues to resolve.

(From what I've heard and read one of the better systems out there for bug handling is FogBugz. )

Emil,

As I have said on the IEBlog, the requirement to log in to even view bugs will be going away soon. It is a limitation of the current system and the Connect team is aware of it. One of their next revs will give "friendly" urls and allow people to browse without logging in. This was one of the biggest gotchas of going to the Connect site but it is also the only supported software that Microsoft has right now for this sort of thing. Other solutions are being retired and groups are migrating to Connect.

Our fundamental goal was to have a public bug database for customers to report issues and to see the issues that others report. That being said, we are in a large corporate environment and it doesn't make a lot of sense to write our own solution from scratch and then support it for an open ended number of years. The proper solution, since there was a tool available and under development, is to use the current tool (Connect) even if it isn't 100% match yet. I predict that within the next three months, the experience will become a lot better for end users (and for me as the site admin).

Al Billings [MSFT]

It's funny when a comment is longer than the original post.

Bugzilla _is_ horrible, but on the other hand it works fine without Javascript (i.e. from any browser I have available).

Al Billings: That's a good thing, I will give it another try when that has been removed. Thanks for answering.

Hey,

Here's one for ya..

Microsoft Sucks!

Take care,
tah-tah

Hasn't the feedback system in IE been around for years??? what is this in IE6?
http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/228/ss4hv.png

Andrew K (Cornelius): You are a disgusting, money-grabbing egotistical liar. That, unlike your joke site, _is_ fact.

I like reading posts by those programmers that have extensive experience on multiple platforms. You get a sense very quickly that they are REALLY smart people. Their posts are the ones that are the most balanced and they don't troll and they aren't caught up in ego posturing and religious platform arguments.

Almost all of the trolls I read are Linux zealots. The Microsoft guys are very measured and practical in their responses and certainly don't follow the Linux guys down their dark little corridors.

Good on Microsoft for keeping things sane in their discussions.