Re: Mysterious gdb behavior

[Christopher Faylor <cgf at redhat dot com>]

[looks like I do have to respond to one message in this thread, after all]
On Wed, Jul 31, 2002 at 05:02:33PM -0400, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Paul Derbyshire wrote:
>> On 29 Jul 2002 at 23:02, Christopher Faylor wrote:
>> > You latched onto this concept when someone suggested it and are
>> > apparently unable to actually verify for yourself if this actually is
>> > your problem or not.  As I said, what a strange strange thread we're on.
>>
>> If a doctor told you you had disease X you'd "latch onto" and be
>> "unable to actually verify" that. You'd also be pretty ticked if it
>> turned out to be a misdiagnosis. But until you heard otherwise or
>> otherwise had reason to lose faith in the doctor's ability to
>> diagnose, you wouldn't question it either.
>>
>> I'm not an expert on Cygwin internals. Thus I assume what the experts
>> say is wrong is what's wrong, until proven otherwise. (And if
>> everyone posting to the list is expected to be an expert and make
>> their own diagnoses, please remind me what this list is for, because
>> I *thought* it was mainly for users to ask for help with problems and
>> get advice, but *obviously* I was wrong...)
>
>Paul, I hope you don't consider this an insult, as it is not so intended.
>However, there is one point here that I'd like to respond to (I've deleted
>all but the relevant parts of the message above).
>
>You contradict yourself.  On one hand, you seem to think that everyone who
>answers a post on the list is an expert.  On the other, you acknowledge
>that some people are here to ask questions, rather than answer them.
>What you don't seem to realize is that there is no clear division between
>the two categories.  People answering a question may be (and probably are)
>other users who are not experts, but vaguely remember hearing something
>about a similar problem, and are genuinely trying to offer helpful
>suggestions.  Viewing these suggestions as the holy scripture is not going
>to result in anything useful for your original purpose, i.e., getting a
>correct answer to your question.
>
>The difference in opinion about the cause of your problem is just that -
>different people offering their theories on what caused your problem.
>This is not easy, as the symptoms you describe don't seem to be
>reproducible, even by the experts (and Chris Faylor is one).  It's your
>right to prefer one theory to another, but the scientific method also
>requires trashing theories that are not substantiated by facts, and
>experimenting to determine the validity of any particular theory.
>Experiments, I may add, that other people have suggested, and that you
>don't seem to have performed (e.g., trying the same sequence of actions
>from a directory with no spaces in the name, or varying other parameters).
>
>Please remember that there rarely are ready answers to complex problems.
>People on this list try to help, but they (even the experts) are not
>omniscient.  Neither are they infallible.  It's possible that some
>suggestions for possible causes and solutions don't pan out.  The thing to
>do is try again, not to take it out on the person who suggested the wrong
>thing, as it was done with the best of intentions.  It also sometimes pays
>to pursue several avenues of research, since some problems have multiple
>causes.
>
>In short, few people on this list are experts, and most (if not all)
>aren't experts in EVERYTHING (by definition).  There are bound to be some
>questions that nobody knows how to answer, and therefore the best you get
>are guesses.  Since every machine configuration is unique, the best you
>can do is help people figure out which guess is correct, so that others
>can search the mailing list and learn from your experience.
>
>I hope this rant is taken in good humor - by everyone. :-)

I don't usually like to leave a large block of text quoted when I respond to
something but I thought that this was a good time to make an exception.

I think this is *wonderfully* and eloquently put.  I wonder if I should put
a link to this message at http://cygwin.com/bugs.html .  Would you mind if
I did that?

cgf

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