Re: Wading in piles of hippo dung...

[Christopher Faylor <cgf-no-personal-reply-please at cygwin dot com>]

On Wed, Aug 16, 2006 at 03:44:32PM -0700, Brian Dessent wrote:
>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.

I have to say that I can't support Brian's game.

With total attention to the above rules we'd all be alcoholics.

cgf