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From: jim@baroque.Stanford.EDU (James Helman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: Crashing the window mgr from GL programs
Summary: Whoops... Touched another pet peeve
Message-ID: <JIM.90Aug3152228@baroque.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 3 Aug 90 22:22:28 GMT
References: <1990Aug3.075057.11705@cs.umn.edu> <11361@odin.corp.sgi.com>
Sender: news@helens.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 19
In-reply-to: kurt@cashew.asd.sgi.com's message of 3 Aug 90 16:31:06 GMT


> it might be worthwhile to review the related code for unsupported GL
> sequences.

It would be more worthwhile for SGI to make GL safer to use, even at
some expense in performance.  Having bad sequences lock up the pipe
and bomb you back to login may have been acceptable back when IRISes
had one window, i.e. the screen itself.  But when an easily made error
in the GL program your debugging causes your entire "desktop" of
networked windows, edits and remote jobs (including, of course, the
window you were debugging in) to go south, it's just plain lousy.
(Actually, when it happens I have a slightly stronger word for it.)

Count one vote for guardrails for the autobahn.

Jim Helman
Department of Applied Physics			Durand 012
Stanford University				FAX: (415) 725-3377
(jim@KAOS.stanford.edu) 			Voice: (415) 723-9127