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Date: 31 Oct 2001 15:08:18 -0500
Message-ID: <20011031200818.11562.qmail@lizard.curl.com>
From: Jonathan Kamens <jik AT curl DOT com>
To: cygwin-developers AT cygwin DOT com
In-reply-to: <20011031143547.A10143@redhat.com> (message from Christopher
	Faylor on Wed, 31 Oct 2001 14:35:47 -0500)
Subject: Re: "make -j2" hang is not fixed in current repository
References: <20011031182318 DOT 15582 DOT qmail AT lizard DOT curl DOT com> <20011031143547 DOT A10143 AT redhat DOT com>

>  Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 14:35:47 -0500
>  From: Christopher Faylor <cgf AT redhat DOT com>
>  
>  It would have been helpful if you could have tested things when I
>  announced that they were fixed.

Yes, I know, and I tried to find the time to do this, but you're not
the only one who has diverse requirements tugging on you from
different directions.

>  I really really don't want to get into the habit of attempting to debug
>  other people's stack traces.

I know that too.  I'm just asking if, since you already looked at this
problem in depth, you have any tips for what I should look at in my
efforts to debug it.  If not, I'll go it alone, but I'm going to end
up wasting a lot of time duplicating work you've already done; that
seems counter-productive.

I have spent a significant amount of time recently testing cygwin and
debugging cygwin problems.  I do not ask for help debugging problems
merely because I do not have the time to do it.  I ask for help
debugging problems when I can't debug them any further.  If I could,
I would.

Note, also, that without exception, in every case where I have
debugged a problem to the point of having some idea of what the fix
might be, the fix that y'all have ended up checking in has been
different than what I came up with.  Also, in all of those cases, the
fix you ended up using was one that I wouldn't have thought of even if
I'd spent days working on the bug.

I know there are developers on this list who have enough experience
working with the Cygwin code to have a high degree of confidence that
they can diagnose problems and fix them correctly.  I do not have such
a high degree of confidence, which is why I ask for help.  I keep
learning, but I'm certainly not at the point where I feel qualified to
debug and fix a problem like this hang.

Do you really want those of us who do not yet "grok" the entire cygwin
source code to stop sending the results of our research to this list?
I find that hard to believe, since you have indicated that several of
my analyses have been instrumental in helping you to find and fix
bugs.  So if you don't want this, I don't understand why you give me a
hard time every time I report, to the best of my ability, the symptoms
of a bug I am experiencing.

Despite the fact that I really don't feel qualified to debug this
hang, I will do what I can.  I will let you know if/when I have
learned more.

>  The recent trend on this mailing list is to announce a bug,
>  sometimes with a stack trace, and then announce that "I don't have
>  time to debug."

I can't speak for other people on the list, but what *I* have said is
not, "I don't have time to debug," but rather, "I don't have time to
debug *right now*," and in all cases, I explained why and said when I
would have more time to spend looking at the problem.  Of course, I
hoped in all of these cases that someone else, more qualified than I,
would look at it first.  But I wasn't stalling to see if that would
happen; I was really delayed.  I felt that it was appropriate to
report my progress to that point because (a) it might ring enough
bills in someone else's head that they would know how to fix it
quickly and (b) some of these problems have been show-stoppers, and
you've expressed a desire to hear about such bugs earlier rather than
later so as to avoid releasing 1.3.4 with major bugs in it.

  jik