Re: Fixing Bugs (Was: A Suggestion for Release Testing)

[Scott Robert Ladd <scott dot ladd at coyotegulch dot com>]

Andrew Pinski wrote:
>
> No you don't need to learn a new language. You need to learn RTL which is a
> language yes but it is based on LISP.  Also some of the recent bugs are on
> the tree level so you just need to know GIMPLE which is really just simple
> expressions.  So I don't see why you are complaining because code
> generation bugs should be just reported and let the powers at be fix them.

Didn't Mark just complain that people should spend more time fixing bugs
than expecting others to do it for them? Mark complains that we already
have too many unresolved bugs, and I tend to agree. If the current
developers are so busy, it seems logical that we need more developers,
not bug reporters. Wasn;t that the gist of Mark's polite rant?

And to fix bugs, I'm expected to learn a variation on Lisp and GIMPLE as
well. I'm not saying that expectation is wrong, I am saying it is an
impediment to working on GCC.

In many ways, I see GCC as similar in model to the Red Cross. You have a
paid staff that handles the day-to-day business, and a horde of
volunteers who do much of the grunt work. The Red Cross provides
training and mentoring to bring people along. GCC and other free
software projects would do well to consider how non-technical volunteer
organizations succeed.

If there is a lack of people fixing bugs, don;t necessarily blame it on
people being lazy. Maybe being a volunteer GCC developer is more
difficult than it needs to be?

> Again I have not seen a simple bug report from you recently; just a simple
> this goes bonkers, this is what I want GCC to output will do.

I haven't filed many bug reports recently (though I have in the past)
because I didn't feel that the effort was justified by the result.

Not that I've given up entirely: I've recently asked about how certain
problems should be reported. For example, -floop-optimize2 is a
pessimism for many algorithms. Is that a bug, or simply a feature that
is not yet fully implemented?

..Scott