Re: PATCH: overwrite mode shouldn't replace newlines

[Jan Larres <jan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 01/12/14 08:55, Ray Andrews wrote:
> On 11/30/2014 11:24 AM, Bart Schaefer wrote:
>> Like most open-source projects dating from the late 80s, zsh relied on
>> users to test and report bugs.  There has never been enough volunteer
>> manpower for a dedicated all-code-paths testing regimen, so a bug that
>> a real user never encounters will only rarely be fixed.
> That is demonstrably the case.  But as a guy who's done some testing in a project
> I can't help but notice that trying overstrike mode would be one of the first
> things I'd have done. It's another cultural adjustment for me.

Open Source projects, unless they're run by a company, rarely have
dedicated testers whose only job it is to look for bugs. Sometimes
people decide to spend some time on that due to a sense of duty, but
generally it makes more sense to spend time on areas that actually
benefit the most people, or that interest the contributor personally,
instead of trying to find every last bug (which is impossible anyway).
The fact that this bug apparently wasn't discovered until now or at
least not deemed important enough by users to report it shows that not
that many people would have benefited from a comprehensive testing
approach here. Of course doing more testing is generally a good thing,
but there is also a cost/benefit factor to consider, especially for
volunteer-run projects.

-Jan