I haven't seen this one so far (but haven't yet read all comments):
Whenever possible, try to avoid bugs. But, even more importantly: When given a bug report, FIX the damn bug. Don't:
- Shrug, mutter incomprehensible things and wish the person with the bug report goes away (yes, I've seen that. It infuriates me.)
- Say "that's not possible" (cf [1]). It is. It happened, no user makes this stuff up for fun.
- Say "that doesn't happen on my machine." Well done! Now make sure it doesn't on all the other ones, too!
- Say, "well, if you had configured it right,...". That's also a bug: Your documentation sucks. Fix it. Also make sure impossible/nonsensical configurations are visible (best done during startup, for example).
- Avoid commenting on the report/contacting the author because there's not enough information. Tell them you need more, what they must gather and how. If you tell everyone the same things, write a HOWTO and link there.
- Ignore bug reports. Valid reasons you're not fixing a bug are 1) you're currently busy fixing another, more important one or 2) you already understand the bug completely and have discussed the tradeoffs involved with others (write a WONTFIX with sound reasoning, please).
To sum it up: Be helpful to your users/admins/etc. Don't be a "Code Monkey".
I haven't seen this one so far (but haven't yet read all comments):
Whenever possible, try to avoid bugs. But, even more importantly: When given a bug report, FIX the damn bug. Don't:
- Shrug, mutter incomprehensible things and wish the person with the bug report goes away (yes, I've seen that. It infuriates me.)
- Say "that's not possible" (cf [1]). It is. It happened, no user makes this stuff up for fun.
- Say "that doesn't happen on my machine." Well done! Now make sure it doesn't on all the other ones, too!
- Say, "well, if you had configured it right,...". That's also a bug: Your documentation sucks. Fix it. Also make sure impossible/nonsensical configurations are visible (best done during startup, for example).
- Avoid commenting on the report/contacting the author because there's not enough information. Tell them you need more, what they must gather and how. If you tell everyone the same things, write a HOWTO and link there.
- Ignore bug reports. Valid reasons you're not fixing a bug are 1) you're currently busy fixing another, more important one or 2) you already understand the bug completely and have discussed the tradeoffs involved with others (write a WONTFIX with sound reasoning, please).
To sum it up: Be helpful to your users/admins/etc. Don't be a "Code Monkey".
[1]: http://plasmasturm.org/log/6debug/
Edit: Formatting, reference to 6debug :)