Bugs, Enhancements, and Misfeatures

Carrying this in part over from Bugs:Item2134.

A bug is not an enhancement is not a misfeature.

A bug is when software behaves different from its intention. An enhancement is a new intention and the implementation therein. A misfeature is when the software behaves as intended but there's a bug in the intention, not the code. They are three different things, IMO.

Part of the problem we have is that Bugs is overloaded and, of course, misnamed. We have the 4.0.x branch, which is intended to have only bugfixes, and we have the develop branch, which is where new stuff goes.

The fact is that enhancement isn't a priority state any more than misfeature is, except, arguably, when someone gets a Cairo-only plugin to work in Dakar. And, in fact, one could argue that some misfeature changes should go into the 4.0.x branch -- since that's where the misfeature lies -- whereas all enhancements should go into the develop one (again, ignoring plugins et al).

-- Contributors: MeredithLesly

Discussion

The example that led me to add Enhancement to the Bugs form was that there's no good way to empty the Trash web. It was originally labeled as a bug, until several comments were posted to the effect that the Trash web was no different than any other web, and then the item was relabeled as an enhancement.

There are two problems here. First, Trash is different than other webs, since when a person deletes a topic, it goes into Trash. The fact that it's implemented as a move/rename internally is irrelevant; what matters is what the user's behaviour is, what the user's expectations are, and what the UI suggests the behaviour means. Second, as I originally noted, there's no good way to empty the trash, which is a legitimate desire for, at the very least, administrators and developers. There's no way via TWiki and emptying the web using rm turns Trash into a non-web (much to my surprise)!

-- MeredithLesly - 28 Apr 2006

Lightened up the Bugs link so the part you didn't carry over is more easily tracked.

BTW: It seems there are two threads mixed here; the general thread on definition of terms and the specific thread on current Trash behaviour.

-- SteffenPoulsen - 28 Apr 2006

There are, kind of. But I needed an example of what I considered a misfeature, and this was the obvious one to use.

-- MeredithLesly - 28 Apr 2006