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Re: Why are Windows paths broken in make 3.81?


On Mon, Jul 24, 2006 at 06:30:22PM +0100, Mark Fisher wrote:
>On 7/24/06, Joachim Achtzehnter <joachima@netacquire.com> wrote:
>>This sarcastic response to one sentence out of a much longer post quoted in
>>isolation suggests that a clarification is in order.
>
>here here! i'd like to add that i'm getting fed up of reading sarcastic
>comments from cgf since i rejoined the mailing list.

For the record, it was an intentionally sarcastic response to the standard
"I wasn't asking anyone to do anything" message.

There was one report of a SEGV in make with no details and there was a
mention of "inconvenience" with newlines which seemed to be suggesting
at unplanned behavior in the latest release of make.  It is quite
frustrating to see people send vague comments about brokenness.  Ask any
package maintainer.  We do want to fix problems (especially SEGV
problems) but none of us wants to be ornithological dentists.

>this particular gem:
>
>>>I assumed the compiled program would work in a bash shell but it only
>>>works in a dos shell-its too late to worry about why that is.  I miss
>>>unix.
>>
>>Yeah, things work a lot better in a dos shell on unix.
>( http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2006-07/msg00682.html )
>
>the sole comment to an entire post sums up for me a very arrogant
>attitude towards people with less knowledge who need help.
>
>this forum (i hope) was never meant as a personal sarcasm area and to
>read it it's very annoying.
>
>if you don't have something constructive to say, lay off laying into
>people.

No thanks.

Here's how the dynamic works: Sometimes people send completely clueless
email and sometimes you get a less-then-serious (or even annoyed)
response from me, Corinna, Dave, Larry, Eric, etc.

When someone notices one of these from *me* then they definitely get all
hot and bothered, predict the death of cygwin, and eventually an
eliza-like AI will be triggered which will start complaining (these
days) in cygwin-talk.  All of the other people who respond similarly are
just silently ignored because they don't say things anywhere near as
mean and hurtful as "Yeah, things work a lot better in a dos shell on
unix."

Here's the bottom line: If you want results then behave in a way that is
likely to get them.  Use complete sentences.  Provide details when you
report problems.  Don't send long boring messages asserting why you need
things and don't express outrage that the free stuff you've been using
doesn't work the way you want it to.  Listen to advice and respond to it
directly.  Call the project/product by its correct name (don't call it
"CygWin" or "Cyg").  Don't assume that people understand your mindset,
use acronyms which are not widely known, or talk about packages as if
everyone in the world uses them.  Don't complain that you have no time
to provide details and expect that there will be someone with time to
track things down for you.

You don't need to be a seasoned professional to understand these rules.
Most of them boil down to courtesy and common sense.  You're doing the
right thing by asking a project mailing list for help.  But you're not
doing the smart thing if you ask for help in a vague or insulting way.

cgf

(who wonders if he has the strength this week to deal with the inevitable
fallout from this message)


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