in reply to Re: Perl DBI issue
in thread Perl DBI issue

I don't understand why people are downvoting this node, it seems to me that Win is being conscientious in wanting to make a bug report in the most appropriate way, and not trouble the wrong person with it. Good for him/her.

Knowing Win's previous history of refusing to follow the advices he asked for and got, and in particular his refusal to read the obvious documentation, let alone the very poor programming skills with severe lackings on Perl basics, I suspect people would reasonably like at least to see a minimal but complete and well written example exhibiting the problem, complete of relevant error messages or logs, and a pointer to the documentation showing that the limitation (rather than a bug) is not already known to the authors.

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Re^3: Perl DBI issue
by jdporter (Paladin) on Mar 12, 2007 at 14:21 UTC
    ...people would reasonably like at least to see a minimal but complete and well written example exhibiting the problem, complete of relevant error messages or logs...

    I disagree. The question was not "This isn't working; what am I doing wrong?" it was "I've found a bug; how do I alert the maintainers?" Posting code is not appropriate in such a case. Of course, it could have been an XY Problem, but jumping to the conclusion that it was is not justified.

    I think Win's question was entirely appropriate. Sure, the answer involved a lot of "RTFM" and other LART brandishing... but then, most SoPWs do.

    A word spoken in Mind will reach its own level, in the objective world, by its own weight
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      Well. I do bet that it is actually a "This isn't working; what am I doing wrong?" Placeholders do work with "EXEC StoredProc ..." with MS SQL using DBD::ODBC. I'm doing that all the time. So if Win did include some code exhibiting the "bug" we could tell him what is he donig wrong.

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        Not to mention that if there were a bug the maintainer's going to need a bit more detail than "placeholders don't work" in order to reproduce it at the least (and preferably a short snippet, along with any supporting structure, that reliably reproduces the problem).

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      I disagree. The question was not "This isn't working; what am I doing wrong?" it was "I've found a bug; how do I alert the maintainers?" Posting code is not appropriate in such a case. Of course, it could have been an XY Problem, but jumping to the conclusion that it was is not justified.

      I disagree, too. To paraphrase what someone else wrote, "whenever anyone claims a Perl bug, the first thing I suspect is a hardware issue (probably a loose nut behind the keyboard)". Now, this may not be the case, but if the one reporting the alleged bug were a renown Perl hacker, it would be easier for me to believe it. When one is renown for not being a Perl hacker at all, let alone anything above the bare newbie, I would expect him or her to post some evidence and/or to investigate whether the "bug" is actually a bug.

      So I am speaking out of prejudice, but hey, an informed one.

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Re^3: Perl DBI issue
by andye (Curate) on Mar 13, 2007 at 10:12 UTC
    very poor programming skills with severe lackings on Perl basics

    Well, I've looked through Win's previous nodes and you may have a point there. On the other hand, some of Win's previous nodes are perfectly reasonable. The main problem seems to be with understanding the application of answers, and learning to do independent research. These are learnt skills, complete beginners don't have them to start with.

    My central point is: Isn't the point of SoPW to provide advice and answers to questions, for people who don't actually know the answers already?

    If Win already had the skills and knowledge to create a decent test case and report a bug, why would (s)he need to ask the question?

    In this case, it seems to me that what Win is asking could be re-phrased as: "When is it appropriate for me to report a bug in a Perl module, and how do I do it?"

    I guess a useful answer to that could cover:

    • Read the docs first
    • Try to find out if anyone else has had the same problem
    • Create a minimal example that shows the problem
    • How to contact the authors
    and the monastery has pretty much covered all of these points in different people's responses, which is great.

    I felt motivated to post because Win seemed to be getting a bunch of "use email, you duffer!", "use Google, you duffer!" type responses, whereas I think that the question of when and how to submit a bug report for a Perl module is a perfectly valid one, and utterly appropriate for the Monastery.

    Just my printf "USD%0.2f", 2/100. If the OP's been wasting monks' time and frustrating them with help vampire requests, there's no obligation on anyone to respond to him/her.

    With best wishes to all, andye

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In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom