[racket-dev] bug reports: include prefs file?

Hm. That seems like more work than just asking people when it seems
relevant. Maybe the status quo is best, after all.

Robby

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 9:02 PM, Neil Van Dyke <neil at neilvandyke.org> wrote:
> Making it easy for people to include their prefs in bug reports seems like a
> good thing.
>
> Like now, I think one would want to expose to people in a reasonable fashion
> what info is being disclosed, and permit them to opt-out.  Or maybe they
> should have opt-in, if you're including the *all* the preferences.
>
> Like now, you could also permit them to edit the info, such as if they
> wanted to remove references to a confidential project but leave the other
> info intact.  Editing is problematic for debugging from this info, but a
> compromise.  The bug-reporting tool could indicate that the info has been
> edited by the user.
>
> Looking at "racket-prefs.rktd" just now, it's not that big, and is fairly
> readable, but it could be presented better for informed consent.  Maybe the
> most bang for the buck would be to sort it by increasing order of
> known-benign-ness and secondarily by size of value.  So, near the top would
> be info like user's name, recent files, and REPL history.  In the middle
> would be things that are likely benign, but that might conceivably reveal
> proprietary info (e.g., "plt:framework-pref:framework:tabify" and default
> language can refer to confidential names).  Near the end would be things
> like window geometries.  And very near the end would be the color
> preferences, which seem to pretty-print big.  Preferences we don't recognize
> would be at or near the very top.  Then just pretty-print it, maybe
> syntax-color it, and permit it to be viewed/edited.  (Basically, do the
> opposite of what some software and online companies do with EULAs, AUPs, and
> privacy policies.  Emphasize the stuff most relevant to subject rather than
> burying it, and don't force it to be viewed in a tiny font in a
> 30x5-character window like we don't want people to actually read it.)
>
>
> Robby Findler wrote at 09/27/2011 08:29 PM:
>>
>> Should I change DrRacket's bug report window so it includes the user's
>> preferences file? It would have been helpful in more than a few bugs
>> now but I'm not sure if it would bother people to have it put in
>> there.
>>
>
> --
> http://www.neilvandyke.org/
>