• Scott Michel <scottm aero.org> Jul 16 2004
• "W³odzimierz Skiba" <abx abx.art.pl> Jul 16 2004
• Scott Michel <scottm aero.org> Jul 16 2004

[An open letter to DMC/C++ users from me. These are my opinions and mine 
only.]

I realize that Walter is busy off doing a lot of work on developing D, 
and D is a very promising language. But, there are the rest of us who 
use the C/C++ compiler heavily for everyday development. Overall, DMC is 
a high quality compiler, but all compilers have bugs.

I've noticed that a new crop of bug reports has shown up. Reporting bugs 
is one thing but getting them fixed is another. Walter is actually quite 
responsive, but he does have other things to do in life and I can 
imagine that he wants to work on fun things (like "D"). I can relate: 
after working for five years on my Ph.D. at UCLA, there was a point at 
which I just wanted to get it done and not do any more coding on FLAPPS 
(my topic) unless I had to. Fortunately, that story has a happy ending.

It seems to me that purchasing a CD doesn't represent enough of an 
incentive to getting bugs fixed. I would ask the vast majority of DMC 
users out there who use the compiler to make it worth Walter's valuable 
time to fix bugs by contributing to Digital Mars' PayPal account and 
putting in a vote for your favorite bug. Granted, this is a leap of 
faith on our part, since there is neither a direct way find out how much 
was contributed nor a direct way to find out what are people's favorite 
bugs. Indirectly, one can figure out what was important by seeing what's 
in a new compiler release.

In any case, this is merely my opinion -- Personally, I'm going to 
contribute $50.00 and vote for the precompiled header bug. I'm hoping 
others will do the same.


V/R and R/
Scott "I Come To Praise Walter, Not Bury Him" Michel, Ph.D.

Scott Michel <scottm aero.org> wrote in 
news:cd91dj$de7$1 digitaldaemon.com:
 vote for the precompiled header bug


There is web interface to this newsgroup. Any chance you could provide url 
to the page with this bug report ?

Anyway I read this newsgroups since about 1.5 year and find Walter work 
very fair regarding well reported bugs argumented with reasons for fixing 
them. I have reported bugs to a few compilers and Walter is very good 
supporter in comparison to other developers.

ABX

W³odzimierz Skiba wrote:
 Scott Michel <scottm aero.org> wrote in 
 news:cd91dj$de7$1 digitaldaemon.com:
 
vote for the precompiled header bug


 
 There is web interface to this newsgroup. Any chance you could provide url 
 to the page with this bug report ?
 
 Anyway I read this newsgroups since about 1.5 year and find Walter work 
 very fair regarding well reported bugs argumented with reasons for fixing 
 them. I have reported bugs to a few compilers and Walter is very good 
 supporter in comparison to other developers.


Look for ph 1114 in the newsgroup.

Every so often, someone comes along and reports a bug, complaining that 
it's not fixed in 2.5 hours (insert your own ridiculous time frame if 
you don't like 2.5 hours.) My point was that if people think that a bug 
is important to them, like the slew of bugs recently reported, perhaps 
they should put some money where their bug report lies.

If you read what I wrote, I made a point about Walter being very 
responsive to bug reports. He is fixes bugs too, sometimes very rapidly. 
If I could, I'd fund Walter to fix the top 10 bugs on the list.


-scooter