----- Original Message -----
From: "Clive Page" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 5:24 AM
Subject: Re: Suspected bugs... (fwd)
> On Thu, 30 Nov 2000, Toon Moene wrote:
>
> > This is my every-day experience in maintaining a medium-large weather
> > forecasting code: If it goes berserk, it could be I'm:
> [snipped list of possible reasons]
> > No matter how well I know the code (and I've really really studied it
> > the last 8 years), I cannot *without thorough investigation* determine
> > in which of the 6 classes the problem falls.
>
> Yes, agreed. But the thorough investigation can be done using the
> entirety of the code. But the last step, sending in a bug report, can
> only be done after a lot more work - reducing the code sample to a
> manageable size and pulling out all the external references. My programs
> often use a large number of external libraries, often written in languages
> other than Fortran. In the case of commercial libraries I don't have the
> source code and the licences would not *allow* me to send in the object
> code. And very often you find that in trying to reduce the problem to a
> small self-contained program, the problem goes away. Sometimes this is
> because the problem is in one of the external libraries, but mostly it
> isn't. It just takes time, as I say sometimes days, to make the *right*
> subset of the code that still shows the problem.
>
> > > Yes, of course. But in turn vendors should help potential bug
reporters
> > > by giving them information on known bugs.
>
> That's all I am asking. Some vendors used to do that so it's clearly not
> impossible and though some descriptions were too vague to be useful, many
> were not. But the number willing to list known bugs seems to be smaller
> now, perhaps because they don't like washing their dirty linen in public.
> But I have much more confidence in vendors who are willing to admit to
> their (fixed) past mistakes, than in those who prefer not to admit to
> having any.
>
> Regards
>
> --
> Clive Page,
> Dept of Physics & Astronomy,
> University of Leicester.
>
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