🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <10533@orca.wv.tek.com> wallyk@orca.wv.tek.com (Wally Kramer) writes:
+In article <8366@crash.cts.com> nkraft@crash.cts.com (Norman Kraft) writes:
+...
+> Contacted by phone, they are quite reasonable
+> (if the problem isn't *too* complicated), ...
+> The quality of advice found on [CIS and GEnie] is, generally, 
+> far better than what they give over the phone.
+
+It seems the phone support is geared toward novice hand holding.  I've
+attempted to report a number of bugs; the handling for them has been
+fairly consistent:

...

+(d) They then try to match it against a known bug.  The phone-support
+    algorithm for bug-matching and identification is often humorous:
+
+	me: "The 'errno' value from 'findnext' is illegal."
+	them: "Are you including <errno.h>?"
+	me: "I don't need to; the value in errno is 19211.";
+	them: "Oh, that sounds like a bug in the IDE project file."

Sounds typical of vendor support "hot-lines".  These usually end up being
"lukewarm-lines" at best.

+bugs@borland.com seems like the answer to my frustration...

Don't bet on it.

People should be aware that vendor support services are (in general) setup
to serve the needs of the vendor and *not* the customer.  Unfortunately,
(and in too many cases) this means that the vendor provides these black
holes as a way of keeping the flames against their poorly tested and
poorly maintained products out of the net news groups and off of the
bulletin boards.  I'm not saying that this is true for Borland, or for
any other specific vendor, but I have noticed that software vendors are
(in general) very reluctant to provide their customers with their
internal lists of known bugs.  Most seem to think that the distribution
of such lists might put their products in a bad light.  Thus, rather
than providing customers with valuable and relevant information, many
software vendors opt instead to quash open publication, distribution,
and discussion of their "known bugs" in favor of narcissistic attempts
to protect their "public image".

The only way for users to combat this tendency is to form an independent
user's group and to elect someone to maintain and distribute a list of
known bugs.  Fortunately, the net provides us with an easy way to do just
this sort of thing.

If it were not for the fact that I have *lots* of other commitments (and
the fact that I don't even own the Borland C++ compiler), I would
volunteer to collect and distribute Borland C++ bugs.  Since I'm not
the right person to do that, is anybody else willing and able?

-- 

// Ron ("Loose Cannon") Guilmette
// Internet: rfg@ncd.com      uucp: ...uunet!lupine!rfg
// New motto:  If it ain't broke, try using a bigger hammer.