Re: Wading in piles of hippo dung...

[Brian Dessent <brian at dessent dot net>]

mwoehlke wrote:

> Do we keep records anywhere for 'longest-running thread', 'deepest
> thread', etc? All the 'make broke' whiners have (so far) produced a
> thread with 90 post (65 in cygwin, 25 in cygwin-talk) that is 25 levels
> deep. :-) And that doesn't count the other threads...
> 
> Hmm, depth = number of posts in -talk... coincidence?
> 
> Nope, it's all CGF's evil fault. :-D

It's times like this that I think Cygwin needs an official drinking
game...

* Every time someone starts a new thread to report that upgrading to
make 3.81 broke something that uses MS DOS paths, take a sip.  (Take a
chug if they report it to the -apps list.)

* Every time someone has a problem with SSHD and hasn't run
ssh-host-config, take a sip.  (Take a chug if they mention pigtail.net.)

* Every time someone asks when the next release of cygwin1.dll is coming
out, take a sip.  (Take a chug if they're asking about a well-known
problem that has been fixed in CVS/snapshots for a while.)

* Every time someone asks how to get some ancient and/or obsolete
version of some package, take a sip.  (Take a chug if they're using
B20.)

* Every time someone reports a benign SIGSEGV in gdb, take a sip.

* Every time someone asks for help with a problem that turns out to be
caused by not having some required package installed, but doesn't post
cygcheck output that would have shown from the get-go that they were
missing that package, take a long chug.

* Every time some random problem turns out to be caused by some stupid
dos/unix line-endings issue, take a sip.

* Every time someone tries to use a bash-ism in a /bin/sh script that is
run by /bin/ash, take a sip (included for posterity's sake.)

* Every time someone runs into what seems to be a legitmate,
reproducible bug but instead of trying to figure out why it's happening
so that it can be fixed uses a workaround such as sticking to an older
version, take a long chug.

* Every time someone tries to use the native gcc to cross compile, take
a sip.  Take a long, hard chug if they try to execute a foreign ELF
binary under Cygwin.

* Every time someone refers to the mailing list as a forum, newsgroup,
etc., take a sip.

* Every time someone thinks that the mount table should be edited via
REGEDIT and is oblivious to mount/umount, take a sip.

* Every time someone tries to link cygwin and -mno-cygwin object files
together in the same binary and encounters problems, take a sip.

* Every time someone has problems accessing a network resource over
pubkey authenticated ssh, take a sip.  (Take a chug if they say they've
read the FAQ, users guide, and searched the archives with no solution.)

* Every time someone posts on the -xfree list trying to use X over ssh
without the -Y or -X option, take a sip.

* Every time someone tries to use a native console program in rxvt and
encounters weirdness, take a sip.

* Every time someone asks "where is FOO" or "what package has BAR" take
a sip.

* Every time someone reports an error building some random obscure
tarball and assumes that everyone knows what he's talking about without
providing any details, take a sip.  Take a chug if all they report is
the 'make' erroring out (last line of the build output).

* Every time someone rephrases an error message in their own words
instead of just copying and pasting the exact thing, take a sip.  Take a
chug if they instead attach a screen shot of the console.  Take a really
long chug if it's in the form of an uncompressed BMP.

* Every time someone replies in a thread with something completely and
totally unrelated but thinks that changing the subject line is
sufficient to start a new thread, take a sip.

* Every time someone includes a reference to something muttered on the
mailing list 7 years ago that no longer applies to versions released in
the last few years, take a sip.

* Every time someone encounters a piece of software whose build was only
really ever tested on linux and is casual about the ordering of -libs in
the link command or the $EXESUFFIX, take a sip.

* Every time someone gets a link error when trying to compile C++ code
using 'gcc' instead of 'g++', take a sip.  Take a chug if they were
trying to call ld directly to link.

* Every time someone asks a generic scripting-ish question and gets
dozens of replies each touting their own pet solution, and a long thread
evolves with back and forth debating of the merits of proper quoting for
filenames with spaces, the efficiency of xargs, the proper use of
regular expressions, etc. then take a long chug.

* Every time a third party distribution of binaries without source is
spotted and an ensuing GPL semantics debate breaks out, take a chug.

* Every time that a "bike shed" thread occurs (i.e. lots of talking and
zero action) after someone reports that Cygwin is too slow or is too
hard to use/comprehend, then take a very long chug.

* Every time someone asks for a [cygwin] to be automatically added to
the subject, or the Reply-to set to the list, take a sip.

* Every time that cgf's sarcasm or lack of patience becomes the focus of
an otherwise-technical thread, take a sip.  Take a chug if somehow Red
Hat is mentioned as having relevancy.

* EVERY TIME THAT A HIPPO IS MENTIONED, FINISH YOUR DRINK AND GET A NEW
ONE.

Brian