Below is the text of a posting that I just made to the SubSonic support forums. I am reposting here as things forum posts can easily get buried...
As Rob wrote on his blog the other day, the Beta 1 release of SubSonic 2.0 is imminent. We are on a very aggressive schedule to get 2.0 final before the end of April, so I thought this would be a good point to comment on how bugs should be reported to ensure that addressed as completely and rapidly as possible. While this is written with 2.0 in mind, it applies to the reporting of any bugs, whether they are in Change Sets, or an official SubSonic release.
Where to Post
Please use the Issue Tracker, not the forums. The forums are a good medium for addressing questions and more general topics, but work very poorly for specific bugs. The issue tracker allows bugs to be tracked, and is integrated into the source control system. It greatly enhances the ability of issues to be tracked from initial report to resolution.
What to Post
The more specific the description of a problem is, the more likely it is to be quickly resolved. Moreover, please be sure not to classify feature requests as bugs. Below is a list of things that a "good" issue report should include:
A meaningful title.
A good title is just as important as a complete description. Try to use something like:
"Bug: FetchByID() fails when using GUIDs as primary keys"
and not
"SubSonic doesn't work"
The version where the issue appears
SubSonic is rapidly evolving and the architecture can go through significant changes in short period of time. Please indicate whether the problem appears in a production verions (i.e. 1.0.6) or a Change Set (i.e. 20768). Moreover, if it the issue appears suddenly after upgrading to a newer version, please indicate the prior version that did not contain the issue.
Steps to reproduce
Being able to see a bug is very helpful in trying to address it. Please let us know how we can share your pain.
The language you are using
Is it C# or VB? Because code is generated via templates for a specific language, it is quite possible that a problem will appear in one language and not another.
What database is being used
The forth-coming 2.0 release offers enhanced support of non MS SQL databases. However, due to syntactical and functional differences, many potential issues are database specific. Even if you're using MS SQL, please indicate whether it is 2000, 2005, etc.
Whether it is a build provider issue, a generated code issue, or both.
SubSonic supports two different models of code generation
- Build Provider: Code is implicitly generated based triggering events (compiles, application execution, and change to the builder.abp file)
- Explicitly Generated: Classes are created explicitly, either via the SubCommander command-line or BatchClassGenerator.aspx
Being able to identify which of these models the issue applies to is a great help in narrowing down the problem.
Any other detail, even if it seems extraneous.
The more you can tell us the better. Don't be afraid to include a schema definition, information about specific data types, etc.
Thanks for your help! We hope you're as excited about SubSonic 2.0 as we are!