OpenStreetMap
Do Not Bother to Post a JOSM Bug-Report for a Plugin
Posted by alexkemp on 4 July 2016 in English. Last updated on 6 July 2016.The developers state:
“most plugins are unmaintained”
This fact does beg the question: “why does the JOSM system actively encourage the user to submit a bug report when it suffers a software exception during plugin use?”
The greatest part of my time using JOSM is in fact using terracer; in the 4 months since I started surveying for OSM I’ve used it to place several thousand houses upon the map in NG3 & NG4. Unfortunately, as the developers have improved JOSM they have further degraded terracer; the associatedStreet Relation facilities within terracer can now not be used at all, else JOSM needs to be restarted & all prior work thrown away.
The very first time that I used terracer it crashed JOSM. I wasn’t too surprised; my opinion of Java is exceptionally low after experience under Windows. However, my computer was using Debian (an open-source GUI), so I eventually used the bug-report system. What an utter waste of my time:—
Advice for Making a JOSM Bug-Report
(slightly prejudiced)
- Don’t bother
- Definitely don’t bother if it is a Plugin
- Upgrade all to the latest snapshot
(the developers will ignore your report otherwise, but never inform you of that fact) - Only one bug-report / year
(else you may be called a spammer)
Advice in Using terracer
- Never select ‘create an associatedStreet relation’
- Never select ‘keep outline way’
(you now have a good chance of entering houses without crashing JOSM)
Discussion
Comment from Vincent de Phily on 5 July 2016 at 09:51
My experience of JOSM bug reporting isn’t that bad, reporting is certainly worth the time.
Concerning the “use latest snapshot” requirement, it is pretty standard as many projects use this to ward off duplicates and false positives. And in your case it should be pretty easy to grab that josm-latest and report using an up to date stacktrace ?
The problem of unmaintained plugins is frustrating, but it’s hard to blame the JOSM devs for code that they didn’t write (and apparently don’t use) and sits outside their repository. Terracer is really usefull and I’d like to see it in core… But that’s a feature request, not a bug report. I’m not sure what can be done to reduce the problem of onmaintained plugins.
Seeing no progress being done on a bug that affects you is of course frustrating. But venting that frustration by re-posting near-identical bug reports (1 2 3 4) is counter-productive. It wastes developer’s limited time and hurts motivation. It’s not surprising that it feels like spam to them.
If you’ve got new information, you should add it to the existing report instead of creating a new one, that’s a basic principle of bugtracking. If many months have passed with no reply it’s acceptable to add a polite “any news ?” comment on a report, but unless you’re a paying customer you should be prepared for a “sorry, no time, patches welcome” reply. Sometimes you get no reply, and that has the same implicit meaning.
Comment from SomeoneElse on 5 July 2016 at 23:39
My experience of logging bugs against JOSM (core) has that they tend to get dealt with pretty quickly, actually. Certainly faster than certain other maintainers… However, with plugins they’re at the mercy of whoever wrote the plugin in the first place, so you can’t really blame the JOSM devs here.
From memory, haven’t other people had a go at “terracer” alternatives in the past? Might be worth asking on the help site or #osm to see what recommendations people have.
Comment from alexkemp on 6 July 2016 at 01:03
Hi https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/SomeoneElse
That word “blame” is the key feature here. I tried my hardest with this diary entry to make a simple factual entry, drawn from a statement from a leading developer to my latest bug report:— ‘there is zero point in making a bug-report on a plugin since most plugins are not maintained by the developers’.
Now, there is lots that can be said in response to that fact at the end of the previous paragraph, but when I make a bug-report there is zero blame from me towards the developers about the fact that there is a bug in the program. I’ve done lots & lots of programming, including a little open-source programming, and I know that bugs are part & parcel of programming. However, my experience is that I have received masses & masses of blame for the fact of making these bug reports. In fact, people have gone ballistic about it. And I’m sorry, and I know that it is a pain, but it’s not my fault that the recent changes in JOSM have decreased the viability of the terracer plugin. I’m just reporting that fact. And seriously, if you cannot handle the reports, go and find something else to do, because you really mustn’t be dealing with the public.
I’ll make an offer, and I’m serious about it:
I’ll take over support of the terracer plugin. Give me a username/password (whatever) so that I can administer the source, and perhaps some suggestions to get going. Then leave me to it. I’ll tell you in a week or two if I’m up to it, or not. Then (if I am up to it) at least one plugin will have a maintainer.
Comment from Vincent de Phily on 6 July 2016 at 08:40
It’d be great for somebody to help maintain this plugin.
Some background: osm.wiki/SVN Getting the source (no need for an account): svn co http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/editors/josm/plugins/terracer Another attempt at a terracer plugin (maybe not the only one): https://github.com/derickr/josm-plugin-uberterrace/commits/master
No need for permission to start hacking the code, only to upload to one of the osm-controled repos. Or if you don’t like svn, you could do like derickr and put your version on github or similar. Then work with derickr and pull patches from each other, and don’t forget to get your plugin listed in josm once it’s in demonstrably better shape than the original one.
BTW I’m not (much of) an OSM dev, I got all this info in a couple of minutes just by searching the wiki and the net, it was yours for the taking as soon as you started getting annoyed that fixing the terracer plugin wasn’t happening fast enough.
Comment from Matt on 6 July 2016 at 12:13
Hi alexkemp,
I feel the need to apologise on behalf of
terracer- I was its original author (7 years ago… wow), but I quickly found that I wasn’t using it much and wasn’t able to maintain it, and it’s been abandoned ever since. The houses around me are in N8 are mostly terraced, but they’ve had such a profusion of different-sized extensions on the back that I find it easier to just draw each individually.It’s a credit to the JOSM devs and anyone else who’s touched it that it still works as well as it does - I’m sure the JOSM internals have changed significantly. Many thanks for stepping up and trying to fix it, and I wish you all the best!
(PS: As Vincent de Phily already mentioned, it might be worth taking a look whether teaming up with Derick on
uberterracemight lead to a better plugin than continuing withterracer.)Comment from alexkemp on 6 July 2016 at 12:54
Hi https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Matt
Gosh, 7 years… well, I’m a youngster of 3 months and I use
terracerevery day (am using it right now on semi-detached 30s houses in Ivy Grove, Carlton). I like it a lot, naturally think that it could be improved, and am serious about offering to maintain it — I have a couple of decades of programming experience & am recently retired, so have both the time & desire to tackle it.I’m sure that uberterrace is wonderful, but the difference is that
terraceris easily available to every JOSM user via the standard F2 list of plugins, whilst uberterrace is not. If I’m going to devote my time to it — and time, in the end, is the only thing that we all have to offer — then I want to work on something that everyone will be able to use rather than some niche product.I’m happy simply to be given co-developer access to the source. However, I’ll send you my email address as a message and, if you want to explore letting me breathe life into your baby, we can take it further.