[Zope3-dev] Re: [Zope-Coders] Someone broke the HEAD, again :-(

[Guido van Rossum]

> > [Chris W, in a private comment]
> > > Am I unjustified in expecting the person who broke this to fix it? ;-)

[Guido]
> > Indeed you are.  Nobody owns the code.  (See SteveA's recent change to
> > "my" job board example page templates.)
> 
> *shrugs* I don't really agree, and I don't see how your statement or
> exampel are relevent...

Maybe we misunderstood each other.  I'm not saying that Jeremy isn't
responsible for fixing it.  I'm also not saying that you should fix
it.  I'm just saying that *if* somebody else (like me) figures out how
to fix it, there's no rule that says I shouldn't check in the fix
(assuming I know what I'm doing -- never commit when in doubt).

> If I break code, then I expect to fix it. If I break code and don't
> know about it, but someone points it out, then I still expect to fix
> it.

How could I break something and not know about it?  There are unit
tests.  (Well, some people apparently don't run them, and that's a
separate issue that the authorities will take very seriously...)
When the unit tests don't reveal a problem, it may be a compiler or
platform issue, and then I may be dependent on someone with access to
the platform where it breaks for the fix.

> If I merely find broken code, which I don't understand at all (as in
> this case; I haven't done any C coding in 5 years) then am I really
> the best person to fix it?

Who say you should fix it? :-)

> In this case, there are unit tests, which should have been run. I'm
> not sure how they could have run if the code wouldn't compile. If
> the code did compile on the platform of whoever ran the tests, then
> fine, but now they're aware, I'd expect they're in a much better
> position to fix the code than me...

Not true.  Compilers differ vastly between platforms.  It's often hard
to know what the compiler on a platform you don't use will complain
about.  Of course, if the person who *does* have the platform that
reveals the problem doesn't understand the code well enough to fix it,
they should work with someone who understands the code and work it out
together.  In this particular case, it's not clear to me that Jeremy
should have known that a redundant semicolon causes an error on
Windows.  (I do think he should've noticed that he was inserting
declarations after statements. :-)

> cheers,
> 
> Chris
> 
> PS: I didn't make any assertions about code ownership, just
> resonsibilities for actions people take ;-)

I think I've explained why it isn't always as easy as you seem to think.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)