[cairo] cairo_surface_create_similar / create_similarfor SVGSurface

[Carl Worth]

On Wed, 2008-07-16 at 20:03 -0700, Travis Griggs wrote:
> On Jul 16, 2008, at 4:40 PM, Carl Worth wrote:
> > You've basically got two options for bug reporting:
> >
> > 1. Post an issue to this mailing list,
...
> > 2. Open a bug report and bugs.freedesktop.org.

> Can you or anyone else gander a qualitative guess as to which method  
> is more effective? Historically, I've had bad luck with watching bugs  
> disappear into bug tracking systems for other projects, so I tend to  
> go the mailing list route. Curious how this project fairs on that count.

It's hard to say.

Certainly things can disappear into black holes in either the bugzilla
or through an issue on the mailing list that never gets responded to.

Some people really prefer the fact that there is a search interface for
"open cairo bugs" from which one can try to extract things back from the
bugzilla black hole. And they also like the tight reference of history
of activity for an issue, (two things that mailing-list archives are bad
at).

But, for me, I think that thinking about the technology too much can
lead you wrong. For example, I don't think that how well one can mine
history is the most interesting question, since that's not the case
where things fall down. What really matters is the communication. And
the black hole in either case is from someone who cares about something
not getting any response from anyone in a position to help.

I do think that the typical way a bugzilla is setup, (each issue is
immediately assigned one "owner"), is decidedly wrong for sake of
communication. I'd much rather issues be posted and discussed among our
entire community rather than just two people, ("reporter" and "owner"),
going back and forth about the issue.

So, I've always preferred the mailing list, but I've also always tried
to encourage people to report in ways that they would feel most
comfortable, (since the technology does affect there ability to keep
track of what happens).

Finally, I think there are some clear things that do belong better in
one place over the other. If we're having a discussion about what the
best solution is for a problem, then we really want to do that on the
mailing list. If we've arrived at a decision about the right solution
and just want to note that down until we can get to it, then a bugzilla
entry can work fine for that, (but wiki pages like
cairographics.org/todo work fine for that purpose too). Of course, an
even better place to record the solution is by pushing a git commit with
code that implements it!

Anyway, those are my rambling thoughts on the matter.

-Carl