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From: Chris Faylor <cgf AT cygnus DOT com>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 01:12:21 -0400
To: "'cygwin AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com'" <cygwin AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com>
Subject: Re: How is textmode/binmode determined in Cygwin 1.1.0 net releas e for pipes?
Message-ID: <20000428011221.A1537@cygnus.com>
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	"'cygwin AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com'" <cygwin AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com>
References: <1DB8BA4BAC88D3118B2300508B5A552C0C8CDC AT mail DOT fitlinxx DOT com>
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In-Reply-To: <1DB8BA4BAC88D3118B2300508B5A552C0C8CDC@mail.fitlinxx.com>; from db3l@fitlinxx.com on Fri, Apr 28, 2000 at 12:40:08AM -0400

On Fri, Apr 28, 2000 at 12:40:08AM -0400, David Bolen wrote:
>In terms of your observation, I should point out that the best way to handle
>things is to find a reference (someone or something) that already has the
>answer, and thus minimize the amount of work you have to do - laziness being
>one of a developer's hallmarks.

That's not the best way.  Humans are fallible, as my test case pointed
out.  The net result was that, in the end, I was right, but I forgot to
remove the setmode.  If the setmode turned out to be a key point of this
test, then this "expert" would have given you a wrong answer.

So, you can ask me if binmode is the default and I can say either "yes" or
"no".  If I say "yes", I may be right.  But if you have a properly written
test case (which in this case took five minutes to write) you might actually
have a tool which you can use to verify issues like this in the future.

The basic problem is that B20.1 came out 16 months ago.  There has been
a lot of cygwin development since then.  Most of it was done by me but I
don't know now exactly how everything works.  When I was going back
through the ChangeLog to generate a list of things for DJ to send out in
his net release announcement I was amazed by the amount of stuff that
was done to Cygwin that I didn't remember.

Anyway, DJ and Corinna and a couple of others can certainly figure this
stuff out but I am frequently discouraged by the dearth of people
willing to look into the cygwin source code or even check things out for
themselves.

I don't mean to be picking on you since you seem to "get it" and are
willing to dig to figure out a problem.  It just seems that the cygwin
project suffers from the lack of a component that is more prevalent in
other open source projects.

I probably understand the reason for this -- cygwin requires a
multi-disciplined understanding of things like the GNU configure system,
Windows programming, c++, and the cygwin environment itself.  Each of
those items presents a hurdle to potential contributors.

And, most people also aren't really interested in improving the cygwin
tool, anyway.  They just want a nice free UNIX environment or a free
development environment or a free way to login to their system remotely.
If this purported UNIX-emulation environment doesn't do what they want
then that's just confusing or annoying.  The perceived lack doesn't seem
to cause anyone to want to roll up their shirt sleeves and dive in.  I
think that there is somehow a different mindset at work here than in
many other open source projects.  Or, maybe we just don't have the
critical mass.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling semi-rant.  You have every right to
ask a question here and expect a semi-informed response if someone
knows, or thinks they know, the answer.  I was just taking an opportunity
to make an observation and I really should have made it clearer that I
was not in any way put out by you making a simple query.

Christopher Faylor
Cygwin Something or Other
Cygnus Solutions, a Red Hat company

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