Science Guy wrote: > For a non-expert, such as me, this dichotomy of views is perplexing. This > is made all the more perplexing because there does not seem to be (I could > not find) a user-readable list of bugs that each snapshot fixes vis-a-vis > the latest release. So how would a user know whether the "risky" step of > installing a snapshot will have any chance of fixing a particular bug?
The reality is probably somewhere in the middle. I admit that I am enthusiastic about encouraging use of fresh code. However, I have come to this position from two personal observations -- firstly, that a large number of problems reported on the list involve already-fixed bugs, and hence trying a snapshot is a very quick and easy "self serve" method for resolving a problem you may be having without needing to describe the problem in detail and hope someone recognises it. Chances are someone will tell you to try a snapshot anyway, so why not just do it first? The second is that I myself use freshly compiled code from CVS, and find it personally to be more stable; or if stable is perhaps not the correct word, then certainly containing fewer bugs and more features. On occasion this means experiencing a DLL that is unquestionably broken, but when this happens I simply copy the previous working one (it helps to keep a large number of them around.) Again I emphasize all we're talking about is simply copying a DLL file. In the worst case you can always just copy back one that you know works -- a release version even, if you must. On the other hand, I am experienced with Cygwin and generally know how to troubleshoot when something goes wrong, so the thought of a temporarily broken system is of no consequence. It is good that the FAQ begins with a cautionary note, because it is true that the snapshots might occasionally be broken, so blindly using one when there is no observed defect would not be a good idea. Brian -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/
