It's time for another push at closing some Python bugs and patches.

The next bug day will be Saturday, June 25th 2005, from 1PM to 7PM UTC (9AM-3PM EDT).

Location

Participants will convene in the #python-dev IRC channel on irc.freenode.net. To learn more about IRC and to find links to IRC clients for various platforms, see http://www.irchelp.org.

Links

Transcripts of the #python-dev channel are being recorded at http://www.amk.ca/python/bugday/.

The list of bugs currently being worked on is recorded in the Wiki, on the PythonBugDayStatus page.

Procedures

The goal of the bug day is to process bug reports in [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=5470&atid=105470 the Python bug tracker] on SourceForge, providing additional information so that the bug can be fixed and closed. Bugs should be processed in the fashion described by [http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0003.html PEP 3].

What to do:

• Grab a copy of the Python 2.5 CVS tree. See [http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=5470 SourceForge] for instructions. If anonymous CVS isn't working, you can download [http://cvs.perl.org/snapshots/python/python/python-latest.tar.gz a tarball of CVS HEAD] from [http://cvs.perl.org/snapshots/python/python/ the daily snapshot directory].

• If you have a problem that isn't logged on SF, create a bug report for it. See the

  [http://docs.python.org/lib/reporting-bugs.html bug reporting instructions] to learn how to write bug reports.

• When you choose a bug to work on, announce it to the IRC channel. (e.g. "I'm working on #123456.")
• Consider providing a patch that fixes the problem, or at least a simple test case that demonstrates the bug. Does the bug appear to be gone in Python 2.4.1 or 2.5 CVS? Report that, too.
• If someone else has supplied a fix, see if this fix works for you, and add your results to the bug.
• Read the text of proposed patches and assess them for correctness and code quality. This is usually the most time-consuming step in the bug fixing process, so reading patches is very useful.
• If there's a working fix, feel free to add a note asking for the fix to go into CVS. The SF bug tracker for Python has a lot of bugs in it, and it's easy for bugs to be overlooked.

• Feature requests can be added to the text of [http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0042.html PEP 42] or moved to the RFE tracker.

Questions?

If you have questions about the bug day, please add them to this section.

Previous bug days

The first bug day was held Saturday, June 5, 2004, from 9AM to 6PM EDT, ending early because SourceForge CVS stopped working. 30 bugs were closed, and 14 more bugs had enough work done to make them closable.

The second bug day was held July 10 2004. 18 bugs and 21 patches were closed.

The third bug day was Saturday, August 7th. 19 bugs and 12 patches were closed.

The fourth bug day was held Saturday, November 7th. 12 bugs and 10 patches were closed.

Bug days for other projects

The [http://dev.zope.org/CVS/BugDays Zope bug day] has a good description of what to do, though the details of the bug tracker are specific to the Zope project.

The GNOME community holds regular Bug Days; the procedures are described in [http://developer.gnome.org/projects/bugsquad/triage/faq.html their FAQ].