On Sep 2, 2007, at 2:02 PM, Katie Capps Parlante wrote:
Hi John,
It sounds like some of the errors you found that others couldn't
reproduce were problems only seen in the debug version.
In particular, there are a series of "empty trash" related bugs
that we've seen both on Linux and XP, only in the debug version:
Bug 10739: Unsubscribed PreviewCountdown collection, Emptied Trash
- line 202, in GetElementValue, assert False, AssertionError
https://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10739
Bug 10720: AssertionError when emptying Trash of OOTB items
https://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10720
Bug 10652: RC1 Linux: index error on empty trash
https://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10652
There is some new information about this bug, also noted in the bug
report. This problem is caused by the table being out of sync with
the data it's trying to display. We've fixed other bugs like this,
which were also timing dependent. This particular bug causes Chandler
to access an item that doesn't exist in an index. The error probably
happens in both the debug and release versions, however only the
debug version detects the problem with an assert. I think it's
unclear what the consequence of this bug is in the release version
since I don't know what happens when we try to access an item that
doesn't exist in and index, and the problem isn't reliably reproduced.
If you'd like I could find out the consequence of the bug in the
release version.
As you have pointed out, problems found only in the debug version
can be hints of something being wrong in general. That
Problems found only in the debug version aren't usually just "hints"
of something being wrong in general, they are usually clear-cut
situations where something has gone wrong and usually have
unpredictable results in the release version.
Bugs in the debug version are often reported by asserts. Asserts
report situations that the programmer who wrote the code would call
an error, and you should assume that Chandler won't work correctly in
such situations. Usually these bugs occur in both the release and
debug version, but the release version doesn't report the error
because it doesn't have the assert. The result of these bugs in the
release version is unpredictable, not always immediately obvious, but
probably more often serious than not.
It usually isn't safe to conclude that the assert in the debug
version isn't a problem by just trying to reproduce the bug in the
release version. Typically you need to have the programmer look at
the cause of the error with an understanding of the error and code
involved.
That said, I'm not suggesting we hold up the release for any
particular bug. I just want to provide the most accurate information
to help the bug council make their decisions.
John
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Open Source Applications Foundation "chandler-dev" mailing list
http://lists.osafoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/chandler-dev
