Subject: Issue tracking

From: Philippe Cloutier <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2021 18:32:52 -0400

Greetings,
After starting to use pgAdmin a couple years ago and struggling to track 
one of its issues, I figured out that its issue tracker was not publicly 
visible (an account is required to display tickets). I reported that 
meta-issue in report #5042.

The ticket's Status field was later set to Rejected. In August, I asked 
in that ticket if there was a reason for that.

In September, as there had been no answer, I specifically asked Dave 
Page, who is responsible for the field's change, if he could explain it. 
Unfortunately, more than a month later, that question remains 
unanswered, as can be seen in the following screenshot:

I am therefore resorting to this forum to request help from the pgAdmin 
community. Can someone either solve that or at least help elucidate? A 
quick look indicates that Mr Page still contributes to pgAdmin.

Thanks in advance

-- 
Philippe Cloutier
http://www.philippecloutier.com

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2021 09:23:26 +0000

Hi

Sorry, I missed that update.

The tracker is part of the PostgreSQL project infrastructure, and thus the
pgAdmin project has no control over the requirement to login to see tickets.

We are considering a move to Github issues, but that's a huge and
complex task.

On Wed, Nov 3, 2021 at 9:20 AM Philippe Cloutier <[email-masked]> wrote:

> The ticket's Status field was later set to Rejected. In August, I asked in
> that ticket if there was a reason for that.
>
> In September, as there had been no answer, I specifically asked Dave Page,
> who is responsible for the field's change, if he could explain it.
> Unfortunately, more than a month later, that question remains unanswered,
> as can be seen in the following screenshot:
>
> Philippe Cloutierhttp://www.philippecloutier.com
>
>

-- 
Dave Page
Blog: https://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com

---

From: Philippe Cloutier <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2021 18:23:25 -0500

Hi Dave

> Sorry, I missed that update.

No problem, glad to see you are still here and thank you for the reply.

>
> The tracker is part of the PostgreSQL project infrastructure, and thus 
> the pgAdmin project has no control over the requirement to login to 
> see tickets.

I know very little about the PostgreSQL project, so I cannot judge the 
control pgAdmin has over it, but for sure if pgAdmin's control is null, 
that will make solving more costly and difficult, so I tried to record 
that information in the ticket. Thanks

> We are considering a move to Github issues, but that's a huge and 

I would recommend against moving to GitHub's ITS engine, which is most 
basic.

The ticket I filed was set to Status "Rejected". Could someone either 
explain why or set that field to a more representative value?

>     After starting to use pgAdmin a couple years ago and struggling to
>     track one of its issues, I figured out that its issue tracker was
>     not publicly visible (an account is required to display tickets).
>     I reported that meta-issue in report #5042.
>
>     The ticket's Status field was later set to Rejected. In August, I
>     asked in that ticket if there was a reason for that.
>
>     In September, as there had been no answer, I specifically asked
>     Dave Page, who is responsible for the field's change, if he could
>     explain it. Unfortunately, more than a month later, that question
>     remains unanswered, as can be seen in the following screenshot:
>
>     I am therefore resorting to this forum to request help from the
>     pgAdmin community. Can someone either solve that or at least help
>     elucidate? A quick look indicates that Mr Page still contributes
>     to pgAdmin.
>
>     Thanks in advance
>
>     -- 
>     Philippe Cloutier

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2021 09:06:58 +0000

Hi

> I would recommend against moving to GitHub's ITS engine, which is most
Basic is good :-). We don't actually make much use of the vast majority of
Redmine's features right now - and being able to use Github's system will
allow us to follow the workflows that most developers expect these days,
thus making it easier to allow new contributors to get started.

> explain why or set that field to a more representative value?
Because at the time we had no plan to change tracker. Or are you talking
about a different ticket?

---

From: Philippe Cloutier <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 18:13:17 -0500

Hi,

Le 2021-11-10 à 04:06, Dave Page a écrit :
>     I would recommend against moving to GitHub's ITS engine, which is
>     most basic.
>
> Basic is good :-). We don't actually make much use of the vast 
> majority of Redmine's features right now - and being able to use 
> Github's system will allow us to follow the workflows that most 
> developers expect these days, thus making it easier to allow new 
> contributors to get started.

I'm sure using GitHub's system has advantages. All I'm saying is it's 
nowhere near mature enough to replace a Redmine tracker like pgAdmin's. 
Notice that I specified *most* basic, by which I mostly mean:

  * There is no solution tracking.
  * There is no importance tracking, or any kind of prioritization.

It is basically (pun intended) worthless for non-trivial projects.

> [...]
>>         After starting to use pgAdmin a couple years ago and
>>         struggling to track one of its issues, I figured out that its
>>         issue tracker was not publicly visible (an account is
>>         required to display tickets). I reported that meta-issue in
>>         report #5042.
>>
>>         The ticket's Status field was later set to Rejected. In
>>         August, I asked in that ticket if there was a reason for that.
>>
>>         In September, as there had been no answer, I specifically
>>         asked Dave Page, who is responsible for the field's change,
>>         if he could explain it. Unfortunately, more than a month
>>         later, that question remains unanswered, as can be seen in
>>         the following screenshot: [...]
>>
>>         I am therefore resorting to this forum to request help from
>>         the pgAdmin community. Can someone either solve that or at
>>         least help elucidate? A quick look indicates that Mr Page
>>         still contributes to pgAdmin.
>>
>>         Thanks in advance
>>
>>         -- 
>>         Philippe Cloutier

---

From: Philippe Cloutier <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 18:31:28 -0500

Le 2021-11-10 à 04:06, Dave Page a écrit :
>     The ticket I filed was set to Status "Rejected". Could someone
>     either explain why or set that field to a more representative value?
>
> Because at the time we had no plan to change tracker. Or are you 
> talking about a different ticket?

No, I am talking about #5042. I would obviously prefer if it had been 
solved yesterday, but it does not mention any timeframe. It is simply a 
report of the issue (and implicitly, a request to solve it as soon as 
possible).

>>         the following screenshot:
>>

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2021 10:37:39 +0000

> report of the issue (and implicitly, a request to solve it as soon as
Right, so it is the same ticket. We don't have any definitive plans to
change the tracker at the moment. As I mentioned, we are considering
Github, but that is by no means decided, and we may well leave things as
they are. It's also not a pgAdmin feature, which is another reason why the
issue was rejected; the issue tracker is for tracking features/bugs in
pgAdmin itself; we don't keep any infrastructure related issues there.

---

From: Philippe Cloutier <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2022 18:07:56 -0500

Hi Dave,

Le 2021-11-15 à 05:37, Dave Page a écrit :
>>         The ticket I filed was set to Status "Rejected". Could
>>         someone either explain why or set that field to a more
>>         representative value?
>>
>     No, I am talking about #5042. I would obviously prefer if it had
>     been solved yesterday, but it does not mention any timeframe. It
>     is simply a report of the issue (and implicitly, a request to
>     solve it as soon as possible).
>
> Github, but that is by no means decided, and we may well leave things 
> as they are. It's also not a pgAdmin feature, which is another reason 
> why the issue was rejected; the issue tracker is for tracking 
> features/bugs in pgAdmin itself; we don't keep any infrastructure 
> related issues there.

You are correct that this is not an issue in the pgAdmin product. 
However, the Redmine instance tracks issues in *projects* (as can be 
seen in the screenshot). If it really tracks issues in products, the 
instance should be adjusted accordingly.

For sure, the project  is *not* just for tracking features and bugs in 
pgAdmin itself. There is even a tracker dedicated to support requests, 
so it would be hard to imagine that project issues would not be tracked 
when even support requests are.

>>>             struggling to track one of its issues, I figured out
>>>             that its issue tracker was not publicly visible (an
>>>             account is required to display tickets). I reported that
>>>             In September, as there had been no answer, I
>>>             specifically asked Dave Page, who is responsible for the
>>>             field's change, if he could explain it. Unfortunately,
>>>             more than a month later, that question remains
>>>             I am therefore resorting to this forum to request help
>>>             from the pgAdmin community. Can someone either solve
>>>             that or at least help elucidate? A quick look indicates
>>>             that Mr Page still contributes to pgAdmin.
>>>
>>>             Thanks in advance
>>>
>>>             -- 
>>>             Philippe Cloutier

---

From: Philippe Cloutier <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2022 11:29:29 -0500

Le 2022-01-19 à 18:07, Philippe Cloutier a écrit :
>> On Fri, Nov 12, 2021 at 11:31 PM Philippe Cloutier 
>> <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>
>> Right, so it is the same ticket. We don't have any definitive plans 
>> to change the tracker at the moment. As I mentioned, we are 
>> considering Github, but that is by no means decided, and we may well 
>> leave things as they are. It's also not a pgAdmin feature, which is 
>> another reason why the issue was rejected; the issue tracker is for 
>> tracking features/bugs in pgAdmin itself; we don't keep any 
>> infrastructure related issues there.
>
>
> so it would be hard to imagine that project issues would not be 
> tracked when even support requests are.
>

So, if we accept that the tracker's presentation is indeed wrong, 
presumably, if one was to ask for a general-purpose issue tracker on the 
Redmine instance, that request would then also be rejected?

>>>>             account is required to display tickets). I reported
>>>>             that meta-issue in report #5042.
>>>>
>>>>             specifically asked Dave Page, who is responsible for
>>>>             the field's change, if he could explain it.
>>>>             Unfortunately, more than a month later, that question

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2022 16:59:01 +0000

On Fri, 11 Mar 2022 at 16:29, Philippe Cloutier <[email-masked]> wrote:

> You are correct that this is not an issue in the pgAdmin product. However,
> the Redmine instance tracks issues in *projects* (as can be seen in the
> screenshot). If it really tracks issues in products, the instance should be
> adjusted accordingly.
>
> pgAdmin itself. There is even a tracker dedicated to support requests, so
> it would be hard to imagine that project issues would not be tracked when
> even support requests are.
>
>
You're suggesting a general purpose project for approximately one request
that we've had in many years, to resolve an issue that I've already said is
on our long term todo list?

The most sane way I can think of to make that happen would be to add a
dedicated tracker for project infrastructure related issues (such as the
buildfarm, website, GIT repo and so on), and then use that for anything
that isn't directly product related. I suspect it would rarely get looked
at  - but I've done so anyway:

https://redmine.postgresql.org/projects/pgadmin4/issues?utf8=✓&set_filter=1&sort=id%3Adesc&f%5B%5D=tracker_id&op%5Btracker_id%5D=%3D&v%5Btracker_id%5D%5B%5D=5&f%5B%5D=&c%5B%5D=tracker&c%5B%5D=status&c%5B%5D=priority&c%5B%5D=subject&c%5B%5D=assigned_to&c%5B%5D=updated_on&group_by=&t%5B%5D=
<https://redmine.postgresql.org/projects/pgadmin4/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&set_filter=1&sort=id%3Adesc&f%5B%5D=tracker_id&op%5Btracker_id%5D=%3D&v%5Btracker_id%5D%5B%5D=5&f%5B%5D=&c%5B%5D=tracker&c%5B%5D=status&c%5B%5D=priority&c%5B%5D=subject&c%5B%5D=assigned_to&c%5B%5D=updated_on&group_by=&t%5B%5D=>