Re: Recent enabling of xassert

[storm@cua.dk (Kim F. Storm)]

Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:

> Kim F. Storm wrote:
>
>>Miles recently enabled xassert unconditionally to catch undiscovered
>>bugs in redisplay and other places...
>>
>>We have now seen several crashes caused by this change -- but none of
>>them has been fully diagnosed yet, as this is very hard without having
>>easy ways to reproduce the crashes.
>>
>>Debugging those crashes requires time which I don't have -- so unless
>>someone else steps in to help, I suggest we disable xassert again.
>>  
>>
> I disagree. xassert should only be disabled for releases. We want to
> find the bugs now, even if it takes time to fix them. CVS should not
> be considered a stable release.

I agree, but...

Proving the presense of bugs is no aim in itself (I'm sure there are
many bugs, but if they are "mostly harmless" it is not critical to
find them).

Why detect bugs if we don't have time to fix them (or diagnose
them as false xasserts)?

Actually, my suggestion was mostly rethorical -- asking/provoking
people to help debugging these (potentiall very hard to diagnose) bugs
as they are reported.

So who can and will help?

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk