1365317 - [Meta] New Bug Entry

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(bugzilla.mozilla.org :: Bug Creation/Editing, task)

Description

[Sebastin Santy [:seban]]

The bug filing page (“enter_bug.cgi”) has several problems, and currently shares no code or UI elements with the new bug detail page (show_bug.cgi).


Some of the reported problems that users/developers face are:

1) Multiple Views  - There are three views (simple, advanced, and the “guided” wizard-like system).

2) Communication Problem  - Because of the above, new and existing contributors have trouble communicating because what one type sees, the other does not.

3) Increased Work  - The guided bug entry form increases work for users triaging bugs because it funnels bugs into the wrong components.

4) Legacy Code  - Making any substantial changes to enter_bug.cgi is difficult because of legacy concerns (custom forms, complicated spaghetti code).

5) Increased Bug Filing Time  - Core developers of Firefox routinely leave open tabs because loading bug filing page for the Core product takes upwards of 8 seconds.


Some of the internal problems that make enter_bug.cgi particularly unwieldy are:

1) Two hop process  - enter_bug.cgi is a stateless CGI that posts form data to post_bug.cgi which subsequently makes a database entry. This is easily confused with process_bug.cgi, which is the backend for show_bug.cgi. Having a unified place in the web ui for bug creation would be a cleaner design.

2) Backend HTML rendering  - enter_bug.cgi is completely dependent on Template Toolkit rendering of html pages. The parts of the templates that are slow involve loops over huge lists of things.

3) Critical Code  - Making changes to enter_bug.cgi itself are difficult to impossible because it is actively used, and the risk of breaking it is too high (an inability to file firefox bugs would be critical).


To solve this, a  greenfield approach  to bug filing should be attempted. Thus writing a new bug filing page, `new_bug.cgi` that doesn’t share the legacy constraints of enter_bug.cgi would be considered a better way to handle this problem.