[Ifeffit] Athena problem

[Scott Calvin]

Hi Bruce,

I'm not sure about Maura's problem, but most of the rest of the 
discussion seems to be centered around the same kind of issue. I 
don't think any of us can give a proper bug report on it; these 
problems seem to be OS-related and may depend on funny things like 
what other programs are open (or even have been open during the same 
session). They're also evidently not driving people crazy; most 
people have suggested that they are either rare or easily worked around.

We know that you, Matt, and others work very hard on providing open 
source software to the XAFS community, and appreciate the effort and 
the results. It's also great that the software is 
platform-independent, and is successfully used on all the major 
operating systems.

In fact, I think the nature of what you are doing means that 
non-reproducible OS-dependent glitches will pop up. What =should= 
happen is that someone familiar with the Mac should worry about 
quirky interactions with OS X, someone familiar with PC's the 
interactions with XP, etc.. I know you've made many pleas for someone 
to volunteer to shepherd this software on Windows, without success 
(perhaps because most people in the community with the necessary 
computer skills tend not to use that operating system).

In any case, as a Windows user who encounters these glitches, I'd 
much rather see you continue to improve and develop the software in 
other ways than spend all your time tracking down individual problems 
on individual machines. The software =is= useful and usable...in 
fact, it's invaluable!

--Scott Calvin
Sarah Lawrence College

At 09:05 AM 12/20/2006, you wrote:

>Hi folks,
>
>I have been following the discussion in the last few days about problems
>people are having on Windows with Athena and Artemis.  I trust that everyone
>appreciates that my commitment to providing useful, usable software is strong
>and that I work very hard to meet that commitment.  Unfortunately, nothing in
>this thread has provided me with actionable information.  While I understand
>that some of you are having problems, no one has yet provided enough
>information for me even to begin solving the problem (whatever it might be).
>The fundamental rule of good bug reporting is that you need to provide
>sufficient information that I can reproduce the problem on my computer.  If I
>cannot reproduce the problem, I cannot understand it and cannot solve it.
>
>On my bug reporting page (http://cars9.uchicago.edu/~ravel/software/bugs.html)
>there is a box on the left side of the screen with links to two excellent
>articles in how to communicate with software developers.  If you are
>interested in how to best help me to understand and solve problems with my
>software, please read through those articles and take the authors' suggestions
>to heart.