Re: parallel: This should not happen. You have found a bug.

[Linda Walsh]

Ole Tange wrote:
> In this case you are asking for a bug fix that does not seem trivial
> and which I (who is also a user) have no need for. As I read your
> email you seem to assume that I should spend a significant amount of
> time on that at no cost.
>   
Sorry, that was not my assumption.
My assumptions were that 1) you like programming -- enjoyed it,
2) you did parallel because you enjoyed it, it was something you wanted to
do,
3) having done so you'd want it to work in a variety of environments; 
perhaps
not just unix-only, and/or you'd want it to be of excellent quality no
matter what platform the user ran on --- that you might have a sense of
ownership of the product and want to fix bugs and do upgrades on it
yourself
4) that the fix was trivial or nearly so.

Example:

I have a Types module that I've been developing/use for a while -- may be
close to thinking about releasing it on CPAN (only other offerings so far
have been 'P' and 'mem' modules.  I only released P after developing and 
using
it for a few years -- and it was the only thing I've done that I thought was
ready for release that would be supportable.

It runs on all of Perl's platforms -- though there is a test failure, I 
think,
on the native windows platform due to pathname problems -- module 
itself, however would work if installed(forced).

mem is even more trival in terms of woring/functionality.

Out of the 27 modules I have in my personal library, only 2 of them
have I judged good enough or "done enough" to share with CPAN.
> I have spent several man years developing GNU Parallel from which the
> users of GNU Parallel benefit.
I've spent similar time, though have no where near the same number of users
as I am too exacting and don't want the support headaches for things 
don't meet
my standards.  I don't like support because I feel very bad if something I
wrote isn't working for someone -- like it is my fault I didn't design 
it better.

I realize very few people feel that way about software -- especially these
days.  Those that do, are likely crazy or burnt out or out of the business.
The business changed when a "working program" was no longer a expectation,
and support for getting it working was something added on later. -- But
that only happened because software designers and engineers took short-cuts
in design in order to get the project to market more quickly.  That was
something I had a hard time doing -- and not doing so caused problems.



>  I have provided the service of helping
> you locating the bug and thus made it easier for you to fix this bug
> yourself. 
As I said, know it doesn't use semaphore, but file locking -- I would know
to stay away from it on any high parallel load.   I can build the linux
kernel on my linux machine using make -j, and let the load drive up to 1000
and it will be done in < 4 minutes.  If I had disk lock contention between
1000 processes, it would easily take double or triple that. (or 10x that
if running under cygwin... *ouch*...trying to build the linux kernel there
would be a royal pain)...I took nearly 6 secs/file, where as the
same thing on linux was <.01 secs/file.  If it were my program,
I'd be stressed about it -- **BUT<<<  I also run windows in addition to
linux, so that heavily biases me toward having things runnable on both
platforms (I run a split system -- desktop and some Win-apps on Windows,
everything else on linux (all data files/home dir/backups/mail/DNS...etc);
the windows box isn't on the internet -- needs the linux box for file 
space &
any services).  I had to know about Windows and Unix stuff in a couple of my
jobs -- specially one where I was on the team for Win-compat for IRIX.  A
hairy scheme!

> Free software is not about price, but about empowering the
> users, so they can improve the software that is important for them -
> by doing it themselves or (if they prefer) by paying someone they
> trust will do a good job.
>   
====
   It's not 'just' about the price, but it IS about the price as well
to a large extent.  (and the DRM/lack thereof, among other things)...

> I hope if you continue to use free software that you will also
> contribute to making it better.
>   
----
   Not being independently wealthy,  I have little choice. 

   I do try to contribute -- most often in
reporting bugs to those who want to make their products better, but also,
more recently in scanning wallpaper stock, and trying to make some walls
(http://aethena.deviantart.com/, et al.) in trying to find somethingI 
might be able to do besides program...since that can be troublesome for 
my body. 
Despite that, I've a few modules on CPAN (P, mem) as well...