[GNC] balance of interests between users and developers

[Vincent Dawans]

I think Geert puts the issue clearly in highlighting the need for more
testing, a weak spot in any open source software. This is even more so with
gnuCash because we are dealing with critical financial data, both in terms
of the importance of testing but also the challenge since we don't want
users to "risk" their live data on testing. Possibly there is something we
can do to improve this. In my (long gone) days as a paid software
developer, we had access to a QA/test team that would give us all the
feedback we needed. Of course that's what money gets you. One important
aspect I recall at the time is that the testers were not developers. In
fact that was an important aspect. The least they knew about how things are
made to work the better, because there can be a bias in testing when you
understand what the code is supposed to do, you often avoid doing (without
even knowing it) things that you should "avoid" doing, hence your testing
is inherently biased. The testers' job was to be nitpickers and actually
try to actively break things; some were really good at it. The flip side is
therefore that setting up a test environment should be simple since the
testers aren't developers.

When you compile from source on Linux in particular, as a developer this is
super easy and allows you to install as many versions of gnucash
concurrently as you want. However I don't think it's possible to install
concurrent versions from official builds, even nightly builds. I think it
would go a long way if we could have a testing version (could be a nightly
build as well) that can be installed concurrently in a separate file
structure, including user settings, database and everything. So even all
your setting files, registry entry, etc would be different. Possibly
gnucash-testing or whatever the name is, separate from gnucash. It would
need to be available on Windows as well since a large number of users are
on Windows. Then a group of volunteers could more easily install and update
a test version concurrent to their main version without cross-over. As for
data files, it would be a separate database or file, with recommendation to
not mix them. In fact we could even possibly put a restriction to avoid
errors, such as (if using xml file) the file name needing the
gnucash-testing extension to open. For databases some similar mechanism.
Users could be given instructions on how to create a testing copy of their
userfile or database to test with "real" data. Possibly then a larger group
of volunteers could come together and create an actual semi official tester
group without the need for any technical skills (these might even be
discouraged).

Cheers,

Vincent

On Sat, May 20, 2023 at 3:01 AM Maf. King <maf at chilwell.net> wrote:

> Thank you Geert, for a considered response and reminder of the limitations
> of
> a (all?) volunteer groups.
>
> I can imagine that it was disheartening for the dev team to be met with so
> many bugs and so much vitriol over the issues some use-cases found with
> the
> 5.0 release.  I can also understand the reluctance of the user base to
> beta-
> test, given the nature of GC as a product and the "don't use this on
> important
> data" warnings..... it is clear from the list that many users don't get
> the
> idea of the GC data file being "outside" the GC program on disk....
>
> You guys are appreciated for your time and effort on GC, that can not be
> repeated too often - devs, translators, testers, and the guys on here who
> are
> able to help other users.
>
> <thumbs up><virtual-pizza>
>
> Maf.
>
>
>
> On Saturday, 20 May 2023 10:32:32 BST Geert Janssens wrote:
> > I really shouldn't answer this, but it's too painful to read...
> >
> > Perhaps the user's expectations are too high for a volunteer project
> such as
> > gnucash. It's true, things go wrong. Especially with major releases which
> > typically have changes accumulating over the longer development cycle
> which
> > gets very little end user testing. we do encourage this by the way but we
> > get surprisingly little of it. I suppose end users are volunteers as well
> > and have limited time to help out in testing.
> >
> > That aside, we do take these issues seriously. From what I can tell
> almost
> > **all** the changes that went into gnucash 5.1 were to solve problems
> that
> > appeared in the 5.0 release. There were more than we could handle in the
> > single month between these two releases. We're still working on fixing
> more
> > for the next release.
> >
> > Those include the issue with entering descriptions in the register and
> the
> > broken multi- column reports.Please do understand that while it's
> sometimes
> > easy to point out a problem, it does take time for a proper fix.
> >
> > Yesterday we added a fix for the multi column report which we hope should
> > solve the issue. You are most welcome to download the latest nightly
> builds
> > to help us verify this.
> >
> > The other one has a patch waiting, which is still under discussion. It
> has
> > high priority but we don't want to make it a half-baked solution.
> >
> > More hands helping out are always welcome by the way. In the absence of
> more
> > helping hands, things proceed at the pace the current development team
> can
> > handle. You're free to feel happy or sad about that.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Geert
> >
> > Op zaterdag 20 mei 2023 09:37:08 CEST schreef G R Hewitt:
> > > I agree with the sentiments WM expressed; I have had the growing
> feeling
> > > from reading the emails that pet projects are worked on in isolation to
> > > the
> > > main.
> > > It kind of reminds me of a model railway exhibition I once went to many
> > > moons ago. On one large display, all nicely set out, no trains were
> > > running
> > > as everyone involved was working on their particular pet project; the
> > > signals weren't working as they were all in bits as 'something new was
> > > being tried out',
> > > the power to the track wasn't on for the same reason, and people with
> > > trains to run were just hanging about with a cup of tea flicking
> switches
> > > in the
> > > hope that it, somehow, might work beyond the odd pulse of power that
> moved
> > > the train a few inches and then stopped - or worse ran the train
> backwards
> > > so it came off the lines.
> > >
> > > On Fri, 19 May 2023 at 22:41, Wm <wm at ilipsis.net> wrote:
> > > > I think the balance between users of gnc and developers of gnc has
> > > > broken down.
> > > >
> > > > My personal instinct is inclined towards development, towards
> software
> > > > getting better, being more inclusive, making things easier, you get
> the
> > > > drift.
> > > >
> > > > Unfortunately it seems some personal projects got in the way of
> making
> > > > gnc 5 better for everyone.
> > > >
> > > > The most obvious interaction fail is transaction completion which
> should
> > > > have been an improvement but has ended up as an "I'm right, you are
> all
> > > > wrong" issue :(
> > > > see 798829 – 5.0 transaction completion features are buggy (
> gnucash.org)
> > > > <https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=798829#c21> for details :(
> > > >
> > > > For small organizations / charitable organizations / whatever they
> are
> > > > in your locale, v5 broke reporting in a significant way.
> > > > see 798809 – Multicolumn report error when reopened after saving.
> > > > (gnucash.org) <https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=798809>
> > > > why? because preparing a standard set of reports is what is expected
> of
> > > > small businesses, etc
> > > > it is understood, pretty much in every jurisdiction, that you start
> with
> > > > last year's balance sheet, you add in the income statement for the
> last
> >
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