Re: [rfa/doco] PROBLEMS: add regressions since gdb 6.0

[Andrew Cagney <cagney@gnu.org>]

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>>Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 10:03:31 -0500
>>> From: Andrew Cagney <cagney@gnu.org>
>>
>>>> > 
>>>> > What do we gain by removing something that continues to be a major
>>>> > problem from the file named PROBLEMS?  I just don't get it.
>>
>>> 
>>> Please read my most recent reply from yesterday.
> 
> 
> Andrew, I did read your reply, and I still don't get it; please bear
> with us.
> 
> Assuming that we only leave in PROBLEMS those bugs that have visible
> user-level effect, do you still object to have there bugs from old
> versions?  If so, please tell why you think users should not know
> about them.

Er, this is what I wrote:

> I'm objecting to:
> 
>>> "Regressions since gdb 6.0"
>>> and "Regressions since gdb 5.3".

> If specific problems are present in 6.1 and are going to _really_ hurt the user then they should be mentioned (if they happened to be in 6.0 as well, oops).
> 
> However, we should not allow PROBLEMS to accumulate just because they are still present -- heavy editing is required to ensure that the PROBLEMS file is both relevant and focused (Several releases back I deleted chunks of README as, although technically correct, they were simply not relevant). 

Put simply those titles should be removed.

Andrew




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From: Andrew Cagney <cagney@gnu.org>
To: Michael Elizabeth Chastain <mec.gnu@mindspring.com>
Cc: eliz@elta.co.il, gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com
Subject: Re: [rfa/doco] PROBLEMS: add regressions since gdb 6.0
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2004 14:45:36 -0500
Message-ID: <4059FC60.2090605@gnu.org>

> ac> Er, we already have a repostory of known bugs, it's called the bug 
> ac> database.  Why duplicate the content and tracking effort?
> 
> Because it works.

At a level it does, but it can also get out of control.

> The actual part of PROBLEMS that you're objecting to is the paragraphs
> which talk about setting breakpoints in constructors in C++ code.
> This doesn't work with gcc v3 because gcc v3 emits multiple copies
> of the object code, and gdb sets the breakpoint in just one of them.

I'm objecting to:

>> "Regressions since gdb 6.0"
>> and "Regressions since gdb 5.3".

If specific problems are present in 6.1 and are going to _really_ hurt 
the user then they should be mentioned (if they happened to be in 6.0 as 
well, oops).

However, we should not allow PROBLEMS to accumulate just because they 
are still present -- heavy editing is required to ensure that the 
PROBLEMS file is both relevant and focused (Several releases back I 
deleted chunks of README as, although technically correct, they were 
simply not relevant).

> Before PROBLEMS talked about this, we got several reports per month
> about this issue.

Actually, somewhat perversely, that is a good thing.

It leads to a cluster of bug reports that provide a strong pointer to a 
specific problem that is hurting many of our users.  If we introduce 
mechanisms that artificially filter out this information we end up with 
a skewed view of our user base.

 >  Now we don't get any.  And for each user that takes
 > the trouble to e-mail us, there are many more users who run into the
 > issue and appreciate having a short description of it.
> I think we should keep that part of PROBLEMS as long as gdb has this
> problem.

Definitly no.

Andrew