Re: Pruning the TODO list

On tor, 2012-06-21 at 15:01 +0800, Simon Riggs wrote:
> ISTM that we should prune the list right down to nothing, or very,
> very few entries. We must have a TODO list that we can trust to save
> us time. I don't want to see any more people waste their time on
> issues that aren't really wanted. At the moment we have lots of false
> positives and so waste time and bring the TODO list into disrepute. It
> would be better to have a compact list where every item was reasonably
> accepted, so we can begin to trust it again. Trusting the TODO list is
> what brought me my first patch, and I think it could and should be the
> same with others.

Discussing the merits and design of a feature is half the work, so one
shouldn't expect all the things on the TODO list to be completely
discussed. Otherwise someone would have typed in the code already. So
we just need to clarify to readers that the list are items worth
thinking about, not items needing someone to type in some code. The
archive links that should accompany most items should contain hints
about how far discussion has progressed.

Nonetheless, it would be a good idea to prune the TODO list regularly,
such as after a release. We used to do that a bit, not so much lately,
perhaps. But everyone is invited to contribute to that.

Note, however, that even in well-maintained bug tracking systems,
garbage and obsolete items accumulate over time, so some maintenance of
this kind would still be necessary.