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Re: is there a cygwin maintainer for gnu emacs?


From: Richard M. Stallman
Subject: Re: is there a cygwin maintainer for gnu emacs?
Date: Fri, 12 Aug 2005 10:59:49 -0400

    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.

It crashed.  It has a bug.  What more is there to say?

      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.

Printing a message would not change this situation.  Debugging the bug
will always require doing these things, and if they can't be done, the
bug can't be debugged.

    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.

How would such a message have helped anyone?  Practically speaking, I
don't see how it would change anything.

      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.

Until the bug is debugged, we know nothing about where the cause lies.
The fact that it manifested itself in this way, that it was GC where the
bug bit, really tells us nothing.

That is why a message would not really help.  The visible details of
the crash tell us nothing about its cause.  It was caused by a long
chain of events, and we know nothing about where it started.  Any
feeling you might get, from such a message, that you know what's going
on would be a false feeling.






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