At 01:21 PM 2/12/2004, Peter A. Castro you wrote: >On Thu, 12 Feb 2004, Christopher Faylor wrote: > >> On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 09:44:26AM -0500, Larry Hall wrote: >> >As I mentioned before, it's better to verify that the current snapshot does >> >address the problem you're seeing locally. Otherwise, if you're seeing a >> >variant or something different than the rest, your problem won't be known >> >until after 1.5.8 is released. See <http://cygwin.com/snapshots/> for the >> >latest snapshots you can download and try. >> >> Right. This is *exactly* why there are problems with zsh. Someone had >> an easily reproducible problem that showed up in 1.5.6. Rather than >> report it they apparently waited for 1.5.7 to show up, assuming that all >> of their problems would be solved. > >Well, I would have reported it, but I never had a chance to upgrade to >1.5.6 in the first place (have been too busy with other things), and then >along came 1.5.7 any all hell broke loose. For anyone who wants a stable >environment, what's the harm in stepping back a version or two so that >they can get back to work?
I think I answered this in my prior response but I'll clarify. I'm not recommending that people jump head-first into using the latest snapshot and never look back no matter how much trouble they find. It's prudent and recommended to have a backup that you're comfortable with. If you find a problem with the snapshot that significantly impacts your productivity, report it, roll back, and do what you need to do. It's not an all or nothing affair. Of course, if you can help debug, that's great too! Sounds like you recognize all this but I'm just a little concerned that you're giving the impression to others that once you step into the realm of a snapshot, you can't roll back. >I know that when things like this break in my >*work* environment, the last thing I'd want is to play russian roulette >with a snapshot which might make things worse. And if it does, so what? Report, roll back, move on. What's so hard about that? >If you're not a >developer, why not just wait? You certainly can but then you run the risk of your problem not getting fixed even if others think the problem has been fixed. Actually, I would characterize that stance as russian roulette but if that's what you want to do and it works for you, I can't stop you. >For the life of me, I could never quite >understand why you and Larry keep pushing the latest stuff when it hasn't >been fully tested or released. And how do you expect it to get tested and ready for release without people's help? That's my point (and I think Chris would concur). >Now, that being said, I am a developer >and I do play with the latest snapshots from time to time (like in this >case), but that's in my home environment where I can tollerate things >breaking (and often break them myself for fun :). Everyone has to figure out where and how it makes sense to work with new software (and not just Cygwin). If running with newer stuff at home while keeping older stuff at work is what works for you, I won't argue. But it does seem like you're pushing too hard on this notion that one cannot recover from a snapshot that doesn't work for them. This is clearly false. >> There are still problems with the latest snapshot that I hope to have >> fixed today. We'll see. > >And, that little statement would make me even more nervious about getting >back to something stable if I had a work schedule to keep. That's OK. There are still known problems, as the email archives can attest. If those aren't an issue for you, then running with the latest snapshot is a good idea. If not, then wait for the next one. Snapshots aren't just generated willy-nilly. They're only generated when someone, generally Chris, thinks it's worthwhile to have something to test by the community at large. It's an attempt to get releases that are very stable and generally useful. If no one uses them, then releases suffer. But no one can complain about the low quality release then. ;-) -- Larry Hall http://www.rfk.com RFK Partners, Inc. (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office 838 Washington Street (508) 893-9889 - FAX Holliston, MA 01746 -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/
