Delete an Array Entry?

[Richard Gaskin]

Dave wrote:

>> > Well he should have known better then!
>>
>> First, Jeanne is a woman.
> 
> Just a typing error, didn't meant to imply otherwise.

No problem. Errors happen.

>> Second, that a mistake is made in any product's documentation does not
>> necessarily mean the author doesn't understand the concepts involved,
>> nor does finding such a mistake mean the author is fair game for  
>> insults.
> 
> There were no insults made and are you 100% sure that Jeanne *did*  
> write that particular piece of  documentation?

The latter is a good question, considering the number of people who have 
contributed to the documentation.  But given the age of that token and 
who was doing what when, it seems likely that entry was written by Jeanne.

But regardless who wrote it, "should have known better" implies 
incompetence.

>> Fortunately with software, unlike cars and space shuttles, we get a
>> second chance.  Commercial software is almost always delivered in a
>> series of versions, and each new version offers an opportunity to
>> address errors and omissions found in the last one.
> 
> This hasn't been the case in RunRev, especially in the IDE and  
> documentation. I have reported loads of things and none of them have  
> been changed or updated in over 3 years. I've now reported this one.  
> Anyone care to to bet me some money that it will get fixed any time  
> soon?

Hard to say.  No release will have 100% of errors and omissions 
corrected, and of the hundred or so addressed in the latest release this 
one wasn't among them.  It was, however, confirmed this morning by 
RunRev staff, so at least they're aware of it.

As far as bugs go, this one is pretty minor. As you noted, it hasn't 
even caused any problem in your own work, and since the syntax as shown 
in the docs is fully functional and nearly identical to what one would 
expect for using numeric arrays, it's not likely to be any bigger 
problem for others than it has been thus far.

> One thing on this list is that when you do mention something like  
> this, a few people immediately jump to the defensive as if the person  
> doing the mentioning is attacking their baby or kid sister and make  
> all kinds of excuses or come up with all kinds of reasons why what  
> the mentioner has mentioned is somehow incorrect or point to other  
> places in the documentation where what has been mentioned incorrectly  
> is mentioned there correctly as if this somehow justifies or makes  
> lessens the original problem.

Those are two separate issues, and attempting to merge them may mislead 
  newcomers here.

The reader here will find hundreds of posts relating to problem-solving, 
some of them relating to working around bugs. I've contributed both 
bug-verification requests, and suggestions for working around bugs to 
help folks find what they need to keep moving their work forward.

In this case I acknowledged that this is a problem, submitted the bug 
report for you, and thanked you for identifying it.  Hard to be clearer 
or more supportive than that.

As a completely separate matter I noted that implying incompetence with 
the author of the documentation is unnecessary and counterproductive.

The severity of a bug is inherent in the bug itself:  it either causes 
problems or it doesn't.  When it does, the first thing to do is log the 
bug, and once that's done the most productive course is it to find an 
alternate solution while the fix is pending.

This bug is considered minor not by anything I wrote, but by your own 
description of how it's affected your work:

> I do not have a specific problem with arrays in RunRev.

Glad to hear it.

Peace and productivity -

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
  ___________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com