On Sat, Nov 20, 2004 at 07:36:30AM -0800, Stephen Meier wrote: > Karel, > > 1) I take it you don't think you got what you payed for?
Of course I got what I paid for, when you can download something for free, it always pays off :) > > 2) Do you have an example of a complex program that you wrote which is > Bug Free? Your 4 answers you put below are unrealitically simple. No, but when I wrote Links, I was the only one of 4 who was bitching about writing internal specifications, and actually wrote some. And had far the least number of bugs in the code. > If I assume that a program is too meet a customers needs. I need to know > what the customers needs are then I come up with a set of proceedures > that the customer would use to meet those needs and in doing so I need > to anticipate every combination out into infinity that they would put > the methods together. My experience with customers has been. You can > write a proposed performance specification but they won't necessarily > read it or think it meens what you think it meens. Upon delivering the > software they where tell you what you did wrong. After making those If you write a specification in a way that permits two different interpretations, isn't it wrong? > changes they will figure out new things to do with the application (law > of unanticipated consequences) which will break the code again. I > suggest, the only "Bug Free" programs are very very simplistic. > > Finally, I suggest you drop your usage of the word criminal. The > developers here are pretty much not payed for their time. Every request This is a mantra I hear every time I report a bug and is absolutely irrelevant to anything. I am also doing things that can be freely downloaded from web and don't use this mantra against people helping me doing my job by sending bugreports. > for a feature, Every Bug report, Every request for an explination or > documentation should be made with the most polite thanks for your > efforts could you explain, fix, repair... did you notice.... how can I help. Polite thanks are just a waste of bandwidth. When you do something for free, polite thanks are a default by principle. Should I put them into mail footer? I don't expect polite thanks in bugreports. I always have to skip them to get to the technical details that interest me. For example, if someone writes me polite thanks for Ronja, it doesn't move the project any forward. When someone writes "The download script for wget doesn't work this way", I go, fix it, Ronja becomes better, the benefit for the general public gets bigger (because not every single builder is pestered by the bug in the script) and I become more happy. If someone writes "Hey Clock, you are idiot, your script is wrong", the net result is the same, and the impact on my happiness should be (theoretically) the same. Obviously, someone can also contribute a code or design, but contributing a bugreport is already a pretty valid forward movement. > No pcb isn't perfect, but I do have a 15" by 8.5" (381mm x 216mm) Board pcb is perfect by principle (because it's a free software and isn't a dead project), but not by implementation. > with over 1000 components on which was designed on gschem and layed out > on pcb. This board has a 896 contact bga with a 1mm pitch. To get traces > to all the balls with only 8 layers (4 signal, 4 power) I used vias in > pad and routed 2 traces (4 mill width) between rows of pads. It also has > four other devices which are 100 contact QFP. Oddles of high speed > analog circuits, A/D converters and D/A converters. This board has been > manufactured, assembled, debugged and tested... Yes it does have a few > (~9 cuts and jumpers) mistakes. So much for my work being Bug Free. Ahh And - can I download the source for the board anywhere? > yes, Funny enough, I didn't expect my work to be bug free which is why i > wired a number of extra I/Os to open vias with pads into that BGA. SO > far they have been very usefull in debugging the verilog code which was > first simulated on .... drum roll..... icharus. gschem, PCB, Icarus - those are the tools I would expect electronics to be made with :) Cl<
