cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) (06/16/88)
GENERAL QUESTION: Where can I get lists of known bugs in Turboc and Quick C? Alternatively, where can I get lists of the constructs and routines in each known to perform precisely as documented? Presumably the latter will be shorter than the former. :) SPECIFIC QUESTION(1): Is the spawn* command of Quick-C known to be buggy? I have programs that compile and run under TURBOC that use spawnlp without problem. These same programs break when compiled with Quick-C. SPECIFIC QUESTION(2): Are there known bugs in the medium model floating point library of TURBOC? I have a large program that compiles and runs under XENIX (small, middle), MSC (middle), and TURBOC (small). Under TURBOC (middle), I get a fixup error. This appears to be related to the total size of the code, not what's actually in it. I can mask off various portions of the code that have something (or nothing) to do with floating point and it will compile. E H. Kinmonth Hist. Dept. Univ. of Ca., Davis Davis, Ca. 95616 916-752-1636/0776 Disclaimer: I'm a[n] historian; what the hell do I know about programming. Internet: ehkinmonth@ucdavis.edu cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu BITNET: ehkinmonth@ucdavis UUCP: {ucbvax, lll-crg}!ucdavis!ehkinmonth {ucbvax, lll-crg}!ucdavis!deneb!cck
swarbric@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Frank Swarbrick) (06/17/88)
I have a better question... How does one go about reporting bugs to software companies? I have found four or five bugs in Turbo C 1.5, and I would like to tell them, but if I send them a letter telling them of them will they actually listen? Frank Swarbrick (and, yes, the net.cat) swarbric@tramp.Colorado.EDU ...!{ncar|nbires}!boulder!tramp!swarbric "So jump in the river and learn to swim. God's gonna wash away all your sins. And if you still don't see the light, God's gonna buy you a satellite."
aronoff@garfield (Avram Aronoff) (06/17/88)
In article <6685@sigi.Colorado.EDU> swarbric@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Frank Swarbrick) writes: >I have a better question... How does one go about reporting bugs to software >companies? I have found four or five bugs in Turbo C 1.5, and I would like to >tell them, but if I send them a letter telling them of them will they actually >listen? The proper place to report bugs (or request support) for Turbo C is on CompuServe. Borland maintains four (!) forums there supporting all of their products. A reply is usually received one day after a message is posted. Hymie
ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) (06/17/88)
In article <6685@sigi.Colorado.EDU> swarbric@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Frank Swarbrick) writes: >I have a better question... How does one go about reporting bugs to software >companies? I have found four or five bugs in Turbo C 1.5, and I would like to >tell them, but if I send them a letter telling them of them will they actually >listen? You can write Borland. I did once, and they even replied --- six weeks later. However, when I say "replied," I mean that I got mail back from them, not answers to the questions I had raised (primarily mistakes in the documentation claims about routines being the same as in UNIX). They also promised a coupon for $15 worth of time on CompuServe. It was to come under separate cover. A year later, I am still waiting. -:) On a related note -- I find it interesting that computer magazines such as PC Journal, Byte, etc. have made no mention of bugs in QC or TC in any of the reviews I've seen. Perhaps this has to do with using only benchmark programs that do nothing to test the system calls. Or perhaps it has to do with the advertising pages these companies buy. The ability to compile and rapidly execute contrived benchmarks has nothing to do with real programming. I'd happily settle for slower execution if that went with greater freedom from bugs. Two or three seconds saved in execution cannot repay me for two or three days spent programming around bugs or testing badly documented routines to find out how they really work. It seems to me that there ought to be a benchmark based on some large, complex program that really talks to the operating system and video io. The performance criteria would then be the number of patches needed for any one compiler and the number of person hours (months) required to recompile the benchmark and get it to execute successfully. E H. Kinmonth Hist. Dept. Univ. of Ca., Davis Davis, Ca. 95616 916-752-1636/0776 Disclaimer: This is AmeriKa! Who needs a disclaimer! Internet: ehkinmonth@ucdavis.edu cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu BITNET: ehkinmonth@ucdavis UUCP: {ucbvax, lll-crg}!ucdavis!ehkinmonth {ucbvax, lll-crg}!ucdavis!deneb!cck
null@bsu-cs.UUCP (Patrick Bennett) (06/18/88)
In article <5712@columbia.edu>, aronoff@garfield (Avram Aronoff) writes: > In article <6685@sigi.Colorado.EDU> swarbric@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Frank Swarbrick) writes: > >I have a better question... How does one go about reporting bugs to software ... > The proper place to report bugs (or request support) for Turbo C is on > CompuServe. Borland maintains four (!) forums there supporting all of their > products. A reply is usually received one day after a message is posted. Borland now has a forum (RoundTable) on GEnie as well - the Author of Turbo C is scheduled to be in the Conference on the 26th... The director of languages was on a few weeks ago... I highly reccomend GEnie - 'tis onlt $5.00 an hour at 300 *AND* 1200... GEnie's IBM RT just broke the 10,000 file mark as well... Free uploads and the fastest d/l's of them all... -- ---- Patrick Bennett UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!null
wew@naucse.UUCP (Bill Wilson) (06/18/88)
From article <6685@sigi.Colorado.EDU>, by swarbric@tramp.Colorado.EDU (Frank Swarbrick): > I have a better question... How does one go about reporting bugs to software > companies? I have found four or five bugs in Turbo C 1.5, and I would like to > tell them, but if I send them a letter telling them of them will they actually > listen? > If you own a legal version of the product, you can call their tech support area, give them your license number, and report the bugs. I've used their service to find error fixes and to make reports. -- Bill Wilson (Bitnet: ucc2wew@nauvm) Northern AZ Univ Flagstaff, AZ 86011 {These views are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer}