Re: wait_reading_process_ouput hangs in certain cases (w/ patches)

[Matthias Dahl <ml_emacs-lists@binary-island.eu>]

Hello Eli...

On 13/03/18 17:12, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> I don't think it makes sense to put this on the emacs-26 branch,
> sorry.  I even have evidence: the fact that one of the hunks
> re-introduced a previously solved bug, as pointed out by Robert.
> 
> This code is very delicate and very central to Emacs operation.  It's
> very easy to break Emacs subtly by seemingly-innocent changes in that
> area.  We really need to test it much more than a few weeks before we
> are confident enough it is bug-free.  The master branch is where such
> changes should be tested.

Normally I would fully agree. But we are not talking about new features
here but fixes to bugs that cause sporadic and hard to pinpoint erratic
behavior and hangs possibly all over the place. It is pure chance and
the packages you have installed, if you run into those several times a
day or really never.

What I am trying to say: Is it really better to keep those bugs around
for another year or more until master becomes the next stable release
just based on the pure chance that we might (or might not) introduce
breakage? Or should we commit the fixes now (and fix current/real bugs
this way) while we're still in the beta cycle and deal with any fall-out
now (which might not even be needed after all).

Imho, the later is the right thing to do (famous last words :P). We can
fix the fall-out, if any should happen. That's what beta release are for
and it is better to fix that now instead of in a year's time or so and
have users deal with those bugs until then.

Those bugs are, as you put it, at the heart of Emacs. They should be
fixed and dealt with.

Regarding the regression pointed out by Robert: I'm sorry that happened.
There were no comments or anything. :( Unfortunately, that fix was also
merely a workaround that fixed only half of the problem. Even though it
dealt with the read fds, the other fd sets were kept as-is which surely
could have caused some hiccups later down in wait_reading_... . The fix
posted yesterday fixes the actual root cause, so on the bright side, it
was a happy accident after all. ;-)

Thanks for your patience with my arguing on this subject. In want to
point out, I only have the user's best interests at heart and what ever
you decide is fine by me. No offense meant or whatever. :)

Have a nice day,
Matthias

-- 
Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Matthias Dahl | Software Engineer | binary-island.eu