Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm
List-Subscribe: <mailto:cygwin-subscribe AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Archive: <http://sourceware.org/ml/cygwin/>
List-Post: <mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Help: <mailto:cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com>, <http://sourceware.org/ml/#faqs>
Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Message-ID: <42FB6AF2.2060301@spirentcom.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:12:50 -0400
X-Sybari-Trust: af80e411 24a46624 0888bd50 0000013d
From: Joe Buehler <jbuehler AT spirentcom DOT com>
Reply-To: jbuehler AT spirentcom DOT com
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6 (Windows/20050716)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: rms AT gnu DOT org
CC: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT gnu DOT org>, emacs_user AT hotmail DOT com, cygwin AT cygwin DOT com,
   emacs-devel AT gnu DOT org
Subject: Re: is there a cygwin maintainer for gnu emacs?
References: <BAY107-F29E79AE5E6EDDEC1D619EBF8BA0 AT phx DOT gbl>	<42F9E707 DOT 1030302 AT spirentcom DOT com> <ull39oevh DOT fsf AT gnu DOT org> <E1E3E1X-0003e9-Kh AT fencepost DOT gnu DOT org>
In-Reply-To: <E1E3E1X-0003e9-Kh@fencepost.gnu.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Richard M. Stallman wrote:

>     When GC encounters a fatal inconsistency in the Emacs data structures,
>     it is generally unsafe to say anything, since that could easily cause
>     a nested fatal signal.
> 
> It would also not be very useful, since any info we could put into
> such an error message could be quickly discovered by a little
> investigation with a debugger.

I have to disgree with that, it's the instant gut ueber-programmer
reaction to such problems.   Currently the user just gets an exiting
emacs, leaving me with no clue as to why emacs exited.  I then have to
provide instructions to the user as to how to run the $*&$%#!!! debugger
to help me figure out what happened.  The debugger that he may or may
not have installed, and may or may not even be ABLE to install.

A simple last-ditch printf that says "corruption detected during
garbage collection, see you later" would be a much easier way to get an
initial handle on what the heck the problem is.  As it was, without any
message, my initial suspicion was a SEGV or similar, which would be
much more likely to be a Cygwin problem than an emacs problem.
-- 
Joe Buehler


--
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/