4 ms·

The app that was fixed by a crash

169 points by thristian 15y ago

thristian 15y ago
It turns out that Microsoft isn't the only OS vendor that bends over backwards to keep track of compatibility with third-party applications.
- fjarlq 15y ago
  Why do you say that here?
  - thristian 15y ago
    Because the author of the article works for Apple, and it sounds like they discovered a compatibility regression in a particular piece of third-party software and assigned him (or her) the task of figuring out exactly why it was broken. Microsoft is famous for hacking up their OS in order to keep quirky or poorly-written third-party software running on newer releases. I don't know if Apple would go quite that far, but it sounds like they care enough to spend expensive developer time investigating these problems.
    - duskwuff 15y ago
      By way of example, the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update contained the following improvement (among others): * Improves the reliability of OpenGL-accelerated graphics in Blizzard's World of Warcraft. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1525 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1525
    - mambodog 15y ago
      While his website lacks any specifics it would seem he is, in fact, a he; a Mr Peter Ammon. http://weblog.scifihifi.com/2005/05/26/say-hello-to-ridiculous-fish/ http://weblog.scifihifi.com/2005/05/26/say-hello-to-ridiculo... Well, that's my cyberstalking for the day.
    - sneak 15y ago
      Apple is famous for doing whatever they have to to ensure an unmarred experience by their customers. Does this step surprise you?
cellularmitosis 15y ago
Swallowing signals :) Back in college, all of the computer science lab machines used shared NFS home directories. It wasn't unusual to see "NFS server not responding" on your console when the network was experiencing a hiccough. There was a running joke about how crafty students would swallow SEGFAULT in their assignments and just endlessly print out "NFS server not responding" in a delay loop. "Crash? No, it's just the network. Look!"
- nupark2 15y ago
  [edit] I just realized that he was debugging a third-party application. The narrative is a bit hard to follow. I can't quite figure out why someone so smart was doing something so stupid. The way to solve crashes is not to crash, unless you're erlang and functional and build the software to recover fully -- but that's not something remotely feasible to do for an application written in a standard imperative language. Otherwise trying to continue on blindly results in a hang like the one he experienced at best, and a data corruption at worst.
goo 15y ago
My takeaway from this is that next time I encounter a really challenging problem, I will close my eyes and imagine having a conversation with House, M.D. That's actually a really good takeaway.
- AlexC04 15y ago
  That wouldn't work for me I'd always wind up trying to debug Amyloidosis.
  - akshaykarthik 15y ago
    Or Lupus... It is always Lupus first and then everything else!
- rvavruch 15y ago
  WWHD?
  - FrancescoRizzi 15y ago
    I see a new line of bracelets coming out of this..
roel_v 15y ago
Man I'd be pissed if I wasted two days on getting my finger behind some idiot's stupid 'hey let's mask errors and hope they go away' tricks. Also, while the story itself was sort of interesting, the format (with the chords and the House and whatnot) made it hard to follow - why not just describe the issue rather than making up schizophrenic discussions?
- asto 15y ago
  Yeah, I didn't even read the whole article because it was so hard to follow. Can anyone give me a decent summary?
- almost 15y ago
  Why? Because that's Ridiculous Fish's writing style. You may find it hard to follow but I (and presumably others) find it amusing and read his articles because of it :)
- thaumaturgy 15y ago
  Well, there could have been some irascible bug in a previous version of the OS that the app kept running into, and this was the programmer's method for getting around that. Or, it could have been some really sneaky bug in the program itself, something that was beyond the programmer's ability to figure out, so they did this instead and followed the industry standard advice to "just ship it". Or, maybe it's part of some framework somewhere, because somebody thought it was a good idea. It's a bit of a stretch to jump to "some idiot"; most of us are "some idiot" often enough.
  - roel_v 15y ago
    Sure, but all of that still doesn't make it OK. I've shipped things with non-optimal solutions - and if somebody ever had to waste two days like this on those things, they'd have every right to be pissed. And yes some of these things does make people idiots - if it was beyond the programmer's ability to figure out, or if a 'framework' thought it was a good idea, that makes them idiots.
- acdha 15y ago

169 points by thristian 15y ago

It turns out that Microsoft isn't the only OS vendor that bends over backwards to keep track of compatibility with third-party applications.

fjarlq 15y ago
Why do you say that here?
- thristian 15y ago
  Because the author of the article works for Apple, and it sounds like they discovered a compatibility regression in a particular piece of third-party software and assigned him (or her) the task of figuring out exactly why it was broken. Microsoft is famous for hacking up their OS in order to keep quirky or poorly-written third-party software running on newer releases. I don't know if Apple would go quite that far, but it sounds like they care enough to spend expensive developer time investigating these problems.
  - duskwuff 15y ago
    By way of example, the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update contained the following improvement (among others): * Improves the reliability of OpenGL-accelerated graphics in Blizzard's World of Warcraft. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1525 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1525
  - mambodog 15y ago
    While his website lacks any specifics it would seem he is, in fact, a he; a Mr Peter Ammon. http://weblog.scifihifi.com/2005/05/26/say-hello-to-ridiculous-fish/ http://weblog.scifihifi.com/2005/05/26/say-hello-to-ridiculo... Well, that's my cyberstalking for the day.
  - sneak 15y ago
    Apple is famous for doing whatever they have to to ensure an unmarred experience by their customers. Does this step surprise you?

cellularmitosis 15y ago

Swallowing signals :) Back in college, all of the computer science lab machines used shared NFS home directories. It wasn't unusual to see "NFS server not responding" on your console when the network was experiencing a hiccough. There was a running joke about how crafty students would swallow SEGFAULT in their assignments and just endlessly print out "NFS server not responding" in a delay loop. "Crash? No, it's just the network. Look!"

nupark2 15y ago
[edit] I just realized that he was debugging a third-party application. The narrative is a bit hard to follow. I can't quite figure out why someone so smart was doing something so stupid. The way to solve crashes is not to crash, unless you're erlang and functional and build the software to recover fully -- but that's not something remotely feasible to do for an application written in a standard imperative language. Otherwise trying to continue on blindly results in a hang like the one he experienced at best, and a data corruption at worst.

goo 15y ago

My takeaway from this is that next time I encounter a really challenging problem, I will close my eyes and imagine having a conversation with House, M.D. That's actually a really good takeaway.

AlexC04 15y ago
That wouldn't work for me I'd always wind up trying to debug Amyloidosis.
- akshaykarthik 15y ago
  Or Lupus... It is always Lupus first and then everything else!
rvavruch 15y ago
WWHD?
- FrancescoRizzi 15y ago
  I see a new line of bracelets coming out of this..

roel_v 15y ago

Man I'd be pissed if I wasted two days on getting my finger behind some idiot's stupid 'hey let's mask errors and hope they go away' tricks. Also, while the story itself was sort of interesting, the format (with the chords and the House and whatnot) made it hard to follow - why not just describe the issue rather than making up schizophrenic discussions?

asto 15y ago
Yeah, I didn't even read the whole article because it was so hard to follow. Can anyone give me a decent summary?
almost 15y ago
Why? Because that's Ridiculous Fish's writing style. You may find it hard to follow but I (and presumably others) find it amusing and read his articles because of it :)
thaumaturgy 15y ago
Well, there could have been some irascible bug in a previous version of the OS that the app kept running into, and this was the programmer's method for getting around that. Or, it could have been some really sneaky bug in the program itself, something that was beyond the programmer's ability to figure out, so they did this instead and followed the industry standard advice to "just ship it". Or, maybe it's part of some framework somewhere, because somebody thought it was a good idea. It's a bit of a stretch to jump to "some idiot"; most of us are "some idiot" often enough.
- roel_v 15y ago
  Sure, but all of that still doesn't make it OK. I've shipped things with non-optimal solutions - and if somebody ever had to waste two days like this on those things, they'd have every right to be pissed. And yes some of these things does make people idiots - if it was beyond the programmer's ability to figure out, or if a 'framework' thought it was a good idea, that makes them idiots.
acdha 15y ago