Re: Root of a GNAT problem (was: Gnat v3.05 bug or compilation problem

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Larry said

"and the text you offer, while quite helpful in explaining what seems
to be a perfectly reasonable maintenance policy indeed does not make
the claim that "we understand the cause".  Even given non-automated
response tactics, there must be occasions when acknowledgements can
only be timely by preceeding full understanding."


Actually, understanding the cause is 90% of the effort in many, perhaps
most cases, of difficult bug reports. Often it takes a long time before
we can even look at a report from an unsupportd user. In practice, the
more carefully the report is prepared, the more likely we are to look
at it earlier. This is particularly true for runtime problems, where
it makes things much easier if they are carefully narrowed down. 

A substantial number of reports are incomplete, or are not bug reports
at all, just misunderstandings, and those of course do not get filed.
We also do not have the resources to provide general Ada 95 assistance
to the world in such cases, so we don't have time to explain people's
misconceptions to them, except in cases where it is trivial to do so.
Of course, explaining misconceptiojns etc is very much part of our
support activities for supported customers.