Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 18:01:37 -0800 (PST)
Message-Id: <199804020201.SAA18710@adit.ap.net>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
To: Demmer AT lstm DOT ruhr-uni-bochum DOT de, djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
From: Nate Eldredge <eldredge AT ap DOT net>
Subject: Re: Profiling code
Precedence: bulk

At 12:17  4/1/1998 GMT-1, Tom Demmer wrote:
>> I'm just wondering: Is there a reason why we can't (or don't) update the
>> DJDEV package between releases? Other packages (like, say, Fileutils) are
>> patched to fix egregious bugs and re-released without changing the version
>> number. Tom Demmer's patch site is great, but it seems silly to have to tell
>> people who come up against known bugs to go and fetch a non-standard library
>> from a non-standard place. I assume this is a matter of software philosophy,
>> but IMHO known bugs should be *fixed*.
>
>Agreed, for another reason: 
>I am leaving university probably around end of May, beginning June,
>so I probably won't be able to keep this up, or even updated. 
>AFAIK, my new employer does not have the resources for that kind of 
>service. 

Seems to me that the logical place for it is delorie.com. I don't think DJ
runs an FTP server yet, but even HTTP would be a start.

>What speaks against new releases IMHO is that the patches must be 
>bullet proof, I can reproduce and check a few of the fixes, but for 
>some I just have to believe they work. The one you mention is a 
>release candidate, others *might* be unstable. Most of them come from 
>Eli, so I guess one can just blindly apply them. I consider this 
>service like something between alpha and beta releases. 

Okay, I see your point. It is rather a fine line. All in all, I guess the
status quo makes sense.

>And, instead of telling people "get this or that patch" you end up 
>telling people "get the latest libc". This makes the impression that 
>libc is much more buggy than it really is.

Possibly, although it does keep new users from ever seeing the bug. That's
what I had in mind, but the current system is fine, I guess.

Nate Eldredge
eldredge AT ap DOT net