slevy@poincare.geom.umn.edu (Stuart Levy) (10/16/90)
I'm writing to report a minor bug, seemingly too minor and too easily worked
around to be worth bothering SGI customer support, but worth fixing some day:
Since SGI 3.3, the setvideo() call (on a 4D-240/GTX with genlock card):
setvideo(DE_R1, DER1_RESET);
has elicited the message:
setvideo: unknown video type, 0
I'd consider this a harmless change from previous versions,
EXCEPT that the message is written to standard output.
If library routines want to report errors, they should use stderr!
[This hosed an application that communicated with a child graphics program
through a pair of pipes connected to the child's stdin/stdout.
Whenever the child switched the display to/from NTSC mode, this
message would be mixed with its output and confound the communication,
but the effects wouldn't appear until some while later.
Clearly this bug is easy to avoid, but it took lots of hair-pulling
before the cause of the application's bizarre behavior was discovered.]
Now the other part of the question: Is there a natural mechanism for
reporting SGI bugs (or requesting features) that's less intrusive than
calling customer support? I'm thinking of cases like this one,
where the item is low priority and we really don't need a response.
Sun has an e-mail address for this kind of thing: sunbugs@sun.com.
Does SGI have something similar? If not, is posting to this newsgroup
sufficient notice, or is it important to register a call to the hot line?
In the latter case, do people not buying software support have any way to
report bugs?
Stuart Levy, Geometry Group, University of Minnesota
slevy@geom.umn.eduslevy@POINCARE.GEOM.UMN.EDU (10/19/90)
Note that the sunbugs@sun.com mail list isn't support, just bug reporting --
they send an (automatic?) ack that your message was received, but it's
nothing like phone support: you don't write to sunbugs expecting an answer.
Is that the kind of thing you have in mind, or are you pressing them for
phone-style support over e-mail?
Stuartkarron@MCIRPS2.MED.NYU.EDU (10/19/90)
Stuart Levy, Geometry Group, University of Minnesota(slevy@geom.umn.edu) writes : >Now the other part of the question: Is there a natural mechanism for >reporting SGI bugs (or requesting features) that's less intrusive than >calling customer support? I'm thinking of cases like this one, >where the item is low priority and we really don't need a response. > I have lobbied to no avail for e-mail tech support from the hotline folk. They are locked into a system that tracks time of problem reporting to time of resolution. They sometimes get too busy putting out fires to stop and smell the subtle stink of software slowly rotting! Well, that sounds poetic and perhaps too strong. Informally, hotline folk do answer e-mail and newsgroup comments. However, this is an idle time avocation that is not sanctioned by their administration. >Sun has an e-mail address for this kind of thing: sunbugs@sun.com. >Does SGI have something similar? If not, is posting to this newsgroup >sufficient notice, or is it important to register a call to the hot line? >In the latter case, do people not buying software support have any way to >report bugs? Well, imitation makes a much stronger case to do somthing than reason. Sgi might do it now to keep up with the sun's. Thanks for posting that interesting point of fact. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | karron@nyu.edu Dan Karron | | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New York University Medical Center | | 560 First Avenue \ \ Pager <1> (212) 397 9330 | | New York, New York 10016 \**\ <2> 10896 <3> <your-number-here> | | (212) 340 5210 \**\__________________________________________ | | Please Note :Soon to move to dan@karron.med.nyu.edu 128.122.135.3 (Mid Oct)| +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+