From: Shawn Hargreaves Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: SEVERE BUGS in ALLEGRO! Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 20:05:38 +0000 Organization: None Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <5etiq7$ir1 AT bertrand DOT ccs DOT carleton DOT ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: talula.demon.co.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 Lines: 109 To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Paul Derbyshire writes: >I have today discovered two very SEVERE BUGS in ALLEGRO that manifest >themselves when the SOUND features are used. Wow. I have to say, your post leaves an ugly taste in my mouth. Not because you are criticising my code (bug reports from users are absolutely essential, and I'm normally delighted to be informed of any problems that people are having), but because of your unpleasant and confrontational attitude. I came very close to consigning your message straight to the trash can (I don't like flame wars, so I have a policy of not responding to any posts that make me feel personal animosity towards the writer), but in the interests of getting these troubles fixed, I'm willing to investigate your problems a bit further... >SEVERE BUG #1: After running an Allegro program that executes a >play_sample at some point, then returning to DOS, if you then run another >DOS program that uses sound, e.g. the test-sbc program that comes with a >creative labs soundblaster, the result is a squawk from the soundcard and >a system hang. This is very probably a bug. I need a bit more info from you, though, in particular: What soundcard do you have? Model, irq number, dma channel, etc... What is your BLASTER environment variable set to? Which sound driver is Allegro using? (displayed by play.exe) Does the problem happen if you only use the MIDI sound, or only the digital sound, or can either cause it? Does the problem occur when you re-run the Allegro program, or only when you run other (eg. creative labs) code? Does the same thing happen with any Allegro programs (demo.exe, play.exe, etc), or do the effects differ depending on which program you ran? Are you running under win95, or clean DOS? >SEVERE BUG #2: load_sample always returns NULL, even if the string it is >sent as parameter is the fille name of a mono WAV exactly as per What version of Allegro is this? Up until version 2.2, there were some problems with the WAV parser (it only understood a small subset of the RIFF format, and didn't like the samples produced by win95 utilities). If you have an earlier Allegro version, get 2.2 from my web page and see if that clears the trouble up. If you already have 2.2, please send me one of the WAV's that you can't read, and I'll investigate further... >I cannot imagine that either of these two bugs could have gone completely >undiscovered. There is no way you didn't know about these when you >released the version of allegro I'm using. Yet the documentation makes no I can't remember who it was that said "never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity", but it's a very true statement :-) Did it never occur to you that I might actually have tested this code, and that the reason I didn't notice these problems was that they don't occur on my machine? FYI, I have tested the sound routines thoroughly on four different systems, which is all I have access to. I think they are quite stable, but that doesn't mean they will work perfectly on every possible hardware configuration. If your system is demonstrating a problem, it needs to be fixed, but this is not the result of stupidity or malice on my part. Re. the WAV reading code, there was a major problem with the version from Allegro 2.11, which I never noticed because at that point I only had access to Windows 3.1, and my code worked with all the samples produced by that OS. Several people pointed out the problem in a helpful and polite manner, and I think (hope) that I've now managed to fix it. >I would like to see a new version that definitely has NEITHER of these >bugs somewhere I can get them within 24 hours. And since when have you had any right to demand things from me? Unless I'm missing something, you have yet to give me anything in exchange for Allegro, which places your right to set me tasks and completion deadlines somewhere a long way below zero. >I am 100% sure that in the time that has passed since you wrote >the bug-ridden beta-like version I have now, you have had enough time to >track these bugs down, and make a new version that a) has a load_sample Do you have any idea how much time I've spent working on Allegro? Do you realise that I have a full time job, which keeps me busy from 9am to 6pm, five days a week? The work I do on Allegro comes out of my valuable evenings and weekends, and it is your good fortune that I've chosen to make it freely available for you to use. If you run into any problems with Allegro, you have three options: - Fix them. The source is available: use it! - Tell me about them. Because I want to make the best lib I can, I will try to repair them, and because I'm a helpful sort of person, I am normally happy to answer whatever questions you might have. But that's purely a favour from me to you: unless you pay me for my work, you have absolutely no right to demand anything from me. - Go away and stop using my code :-) /* * Shawn Hargreaves - shawn AT talula DOT demon DOT co DOT uk - http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/ * Beauty is a French phonetic corruption of a short cloth neck ornament. */