On 08/22/10 03:12 AM, kcrisman wrote:
I don't know that we've had as many people complaining about cookies
recently. Maybe this has been fixed.
Unfortunately, we just upgraded our campus server to 4.3 (the latest
VMWare image that we hadn't heard problems about) and apparently it is
hexed by the cookie issue (namely, that it wants you to delete Sage
cookies before it actually lets you log in).
This is particularly vexing because I can't get it to let me log in at
all. I can even get rid of all Sage cookies, restart the browser
(Safari), go to the notebook server, then delete the one cookie I get
there, and STILL it doesn't let me log in.
I've seen that problem too. I can't say for sure whether it has been fixed, but
I have some comments about this further down.
Sysadmin has found possible workaround of deleting history of the
browser. This is fine in a lab, but potentially very crippling for
those of us who rely on auto-completion of often-visited sites.
Sysadmin is also very unlikely to try 4.5.2 VMWare image after recent
reports of it not being so hot, though I think those may have been
exaggerated - and anyhow he has a lot to do with the start of classes.
I expect Sage upgrades will slip further down your system admin's priority list
if they are causing him problems.
I am really hesitant
to use this in class when I can't even make it work on my own computer
properly.
I don't blame you.
I think I now start to understand the arguments about
rather having one version that works rather than constant upgrades...
Thanks,
- kcrisman
I think Peter Jeremy summed up the problem quite well when he said this on a
trac ticket
http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ticket/6456#comment:67
=================== From Peter Jeremy ===========================
I am very concerned at this "release it now, we'll make it work later"
mentality.
================================================================
In my opinion, (and one I think that is shared by Peter too), Sage needs to
devote *far* more time to testing, and a lot less time to adding features, if
it's ever to become a viable alternative to the 4 M's.
At the most basic level, the notebook does not even produce valid HTML. The
login page has errors, which one discovers when one searches with the W3C
validator.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sagenb.org%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0
I note two of the errors are:
======================================================================
# Error Line 91, Column 31: The for attribute of the label element must refer
to a form control.
<label for="email">Username</label>
✉
# Error Line 96, Column 34: The for attribute of the label element must refer to
a form control.
<label for="password">Password</label>
========================================================================
I wonder if those errors have anything to do with logging in?
The only possible way Sage might get less buggy, is for more people with similar
views to me, make them known to William. *Perhaps*, if he realises people like
you are reluctant to use Sage for classes because of the bug rates, he might do
something to address the quality control issues.
One of the release mangers for 4.5.3 has said the first release candidate for
4.5.3 will be available on Monday and he hopes to release 4.5.3 on Friday.
That's simply insufficient time for testing in my personal personal opinion.
I'd like to see regular "bug-fix-only" releases, where no new features are
added, but only code that addresses known bugs is incorporated.
Whilst Brooks claims in his book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month#The_tendency_towards_irreducible_number_of_errors
that
===================================================================
in a suitably complex system there is a certain irreducible number of errors.
Any attempt to fix observed errors tends to result in the introduction of other
errors
===================================================================
I think Sage is a long way from that point.
Sage is certainly "suitably complex", but I don't think it's reached the point
where attempts to fix bugs will not reduce the total number of bugs. I think
with some effort, and a change of attitude, the number of bugs in Sage could be
reduced, but this would be at the expense of adding new features. It might even
lose some developers, who can't tolerate such a change of attitude.
Just my 2 pennies
Dave
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