Re: gEDA-user: gEDA interview with DJ at DevCon

[Bob Paddock <graceindustries@xxxxxxxxx>]

> KiCad is KiCad of course. Sadly, 3D view crashes when launched here,
> some kind of X11 / GLX / GL problem. I was trying to debug it and fix it
> for them (in the spirit of cooperation), but it looks like it might be
> some nasty WxWidgets internal bug - and I'm not familiar with Wx at all.

I've got a lot of experience with wxWidgets, I even have my name in
the wxBook by Julian Smart the wxWidgets (known as wxWindows when he
started the project, until Micro$oft threatened to sue him).

The standard reply to bug reports bug reports is "Recreate the problem
in the Minimal Sample" and send us a patch and a back trace.
I went through this cycle yesterday so you can see an example here:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.wxwindows.general/71265

The Minimal Sample is the smallest possible meaning for wx program you
can create, a kind of 'Hello World' for wx.

The two most common problems in wx are people trying to manipulate the
GUI from other threads.  This can not be done,
you most post events to the GUI thread.  This is not wx specific
actually, just a general lack of understanding of how the underling
system of Windows is not thread safe in many cases.

The other common problem that causes a lot of crashes, mostly on exit,
is to delete a dialog or a frame rather than 'destroy' it.  If there
are pending events meant for the dialog/frame that has been deleted,
wx crashes, rather than assigning them to oblivion.  I've never
understood that part of the base design myself.

Most other crashes are the type you see far to often, like buffer
overflows, using deleted memory; the standard security risk stuff that
doesn't get enough attention in the drive to ship code fast.

Also note the comments under DJ's Video, how they most all complain
about the lack of Windows version, even quoting the gEDA site saying
Windows was not the focuses of the project.  The focus of the project
is getting work done to make shippable products, or education usage.
The "Tools to make Tools" philosophy should have died a long time ago.


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