[darcs-users] getSymbolicLinkStatus: does not exist

[Ben Franksen]

Guillaume Hoffmann wrote:
> First, since you are aware that we all have little time to dedicate to
> darcs, you should try to send shorter, more synthetic mails.

Sorry. It just happens to me, sometimes, especially when writing late a 
night, that I discover I want to add some additional thought and then 
something else and so on. Have to learn to stop earlier.

> What I recollect from your message, however, is that you point out a
> general issue of Robustness with darcs, and I agree with this.

Especially robustness as perceived by casual users. I personally find Darcs 
quite reliable in my day-to-day experience.

> The problems you mention have already been noticed: there's a ticket
> open in the bug tracker about the strange filename bug
> (http://bugs.darcs.net/issue2061), 

Thanks, I thought so.

> and I wrote a summer of code
> project proposal on http://darcs.net/GSoC about improving the cache
> system (which you are free to expand since it has not been chosen this
> year).

I'll take a look.

> What happens is that none of these issues seem to be anyone's lowest
> hanging fruit. We all lack time, but what we can do is go step by step
> towards making these issues easier to solve.
> 
> For instance for http://bugs.darcs.net/issue2061, one could start
> tackling the issue by looking at where does the error come from (in
> the source code), and reporting it on the bug tracker. Then someone
> (else) may start thinking that this is an easy issue, and is going to
> actually write a fix.

Thanks for this hint. I am currently working on issue2313 (which is really 
something that make Darcs seem flaky!) and have actually made some progress, 
the results of which I will add as a comment to the report.

> An also, maybe we could add a "Robustness" category to the bug
> tracker, for those issues that make darcs seem flaky?

Another idea, but maybe this is silly: what about adding a "Don't like" 
button, which people can click on if they think this issue is particularly 
annoying (or looks like it gives Darcs a bad reputation)? Though that is 
probably a bit difficult to add to roundup.

Cheers
-- 
Ben Franksen
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