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> If they cannot construct a failing test then it's either too hard to mock or reproduce (…), or it's impossible because it's not a bug.

Or, you know, the user is not a developer. Or is unfamiliar with Python, or their test suite, or git, or…

It is perfectly possible to be good at reporting bugs but be incapable of submitting pull requests.




The problem with popular tools is that they have more bugs that can be fixed. So bug reports are pretty much worthless: You know that there are 1000 bugs out there, but you only have resources to fix 10 of them.

By asking users to provide reproducible test cases, you can massively reduce the amount of work you have to do. Of course that means 90% of bugs will never be reported. But since you don't have the resources to fix them anyway, why not just focus on the bugs that can be reproduced and come with a test case...


I don't think it's necessarily about fixing those bugs, but I think a lot of times it's more about at least having those bugs be documented in order to raise awareness on (probable) issues down the line for whoever would want to use that project in the future.


You missed the point entirely.

It’s your prerogative if and how you want to limit the amount of people who can contribute, but I was explicitly replying to someone claiming that a person’s inability to code is in any way related to the validity or importance of the bug.




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