[OT] Computer news from Kassel

[Wilhelm Sanke]

I am very much aware of the fact that software is almost never bug-free.

Apart from the first part - where I wanted to direct your attention to 
the computer pioneer Konrad Zuse - the rest of my post was written with 
some degree of  tongue-in-cheek (both in its positive and negative 
denotations), which some of you may have overlooked.

Also, I consider it an ironic coincidence in itself that we have got a 
new colleague with a doctorate from Edinburgh University that 
specializes in software trouble-shooting.-

I have been less complaining that there are bugs in Revolution, the main 
point was my irritation that a bug report can still be listed as 
"unconfirmed" after 9 months. What use is a bug database when it is 
looked at only selectively? And in case described bugs could not be 
replicated then I expect some follow-up communication from the side of 
the Rev team.

For your convinience I re-quote my post below.

Regards,

Wilhelm Sanke

===========================================

> 1. People around Kassel - and elsewhere - today celebrate the 100th 
> birthday of Konrad Zuse, the inventor of the first programmable computer.
>
> Some extracts from Wikipedia:
>
> "Konrad Zuse ( 22 June 1910) was a German engineer and computer pioneer.
>
> His greatest achievem was the world's first functional 
> program-controlled Turing-complete computer, the Z3, in 1941 (the 
> program was stored on a punched tape).
>
> Zuse also designed the first high-level programming language, 
> Plankalkül, first published in 1948."
>
> Zuse developed his computer living in a small town near Kassel. His 
> Z3-Computer is one of the exhibits in the "Technikmuseum" of Kassel.
>
>
> 2. The University of Kassel this semester added another position of a 
> "Junior Professor" in "Computational Sciences" to the faculty of its 
> IT-Department.
>
> The first holder of this position got his doctorate at the University 
> of Edinburgh. His special field in research and teaching is "The 
> structure of programming - trouble-shooting and avoidance".
>
> It is as yet unknown whether during his stay in Edinburgh the new 
> professor had come into contact with Revolution or the Revolution 
> team, but considering the topic of his work this seems to be highly 
> probable. Apparently he had taken a look at the Revolution bug 
> database with its enormous lags in fixing even fatal bugs,  e.g. 
> Report #8275 "Groups: Bugs and features ("last group" broken)?" of  
> Sept 16, 2009, which astonishingly is still listed as "unconfirmed" 
> although it contains a recipe to crash Revolution with only 4 lines of 
> script.
>
> Although this report is now almost one year old, apparently nobody 
> from Revolution so far has bothered to take a look at this bug report. 
> It might be a wise move from the side of the Revolution team to enlist 
> the support and cooperation of our new professor.--