5 ms·

That's a lot of fuzz for an active bug with a very easy workaround.

by stashpro 13y ago

jevinskie 13y ago
I didn't see a workaround, can you elaborate?
- stashpro 13y ago
  I understood that using an instance variable is a viable workaround. Or maybe just code around the issue?
  - bobwaycott 13y ago
    The author states that even using this method has produced indeterminate crashes.
- Legion 13y ago
  Read the paragraph that starts with the sentence, "Of course, there's a workaround."
  - masukomi 13y ago
    you mean the paragraph that includes "...will correct the crashing error – sometimes. I’ve used instance variables and have still experienced crashes in blocks" ? That one? Or was there a paragraph I missed that included a workaround that actually solved the problem rather than minimizing it?
- hboon 13y ago
  See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5950675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5950675
gfodor 13y ago
The fact that there is a workaround is irrelevant for two reasons. First, said workaround would completely change the entire structure of your ruby code. Basically, kill blocks. This is inferior to Objective-C itself structure-wise. Second, and most importantly, this bug is not something that jumps out at you. It only causes crashes in some small % of runs. So, the result is your apps look fine, you are writing idiomatic ruby, but once you release to production, you start getting crash reports because you closed over a local variable that ends up being released. This is the kiss of death for production apps: un-reproducible bugs due to magic in the compiler not working as expected. In other words, even if you know about the bug, and even if you understand the workaround, if you write code naturally, you are going to introduce crashing bugs that are not reproducible that affect some small but measurable percentage of your users. A true nightmare.
- GantMan 13y ago
  I think "irrelevant" is a poor choice of words here. It is VERY relevant that there is a workaround. Additionally, it's kind of unfair to point at 1 bug (that has a workaround) and judge an entire system on it. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-texas-sharpshooter https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-texas-sharpshooter
  - gfodor 13y ago
    You basically just said "No, you" and then posted some links to logical fallacies. Care to address my argument more directly? The key problem here is that while this bug that may have a workaround (and that workaround is questionable to even work in all cases), it's that the bug does not manifest itself in a development environment, and occurs when you write code naturally. So, you are likely to introduce the bug, but you don't get to know you have crash issues all over your app until you ship it to a lot of users. This, combined with the App Store review delay process, results in a situation where this platform is not tenable for professional software developers to use. edit: Laurent (RubyMotion lead) has chimed in and raised the priority of this issue, this is great news

That's a lot of fuzz for an active bug with a very easy workaround.

jevinskie 13y ago

I didn't see a workaround, can you elaborate?

stashpro 13y ago
I understood that using an instance variable is a viable workaround. Or maybe just code around the issue?
- bobwaycott 13y ago
  The author states that even using this method has produced indeterminate crashes.
Legion 13y ago
Read the paragraph that starts with the sentence, "Of course, there's a workaround."
- masukomi 13y ago
  you mean the paragraph that includes "...will correct the crashing error – sometimes. I’ve used instance variables and have still experienced crashes in blocks" ? That one? Or was there a paragraph I missed that included a workaround that actually solved the problem rather than minimizing it?
hboon 13y ago
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5950675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5950675

gfodor 13y ago

The fact that there is a workaround is irrelevant for two reasons. First, said workaround would completely change the entire structure of your ruby code. Basically, kill blocks. This is inferior to Objective-C itself structure-wise. Second, and most importantly, this bug is not something that jumps out at you. It only causes crashes in some small % of runs. So, the result is your apps look fine, you are writing idiomatic ruby, but once you release to production, you start getting crash reports because you closed over a local variable that ends up being released. This is the kiss of death for production apps: un-reproducible bugs due to magic in the compiler not working as expected. In other words, even if you know about the bug, and even if you understand the workaround, if you write code naturally, you are going to introduce crashing bugs that are not reproducible that affect some small but measurable percentage of your users. A true nightmare.

GantMan 13y ago
I think "irrelevant" is a poor choice of words here. It is VERY relevant that there is a workaround. Additionally, it's kind of unfair to point at 1 bug (that has a workaround) and judge an entire system on it. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-texas-sharpshooter https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-texas-sharpshooter
- gfodor 13y ago
  You basically just said "No, you" and then posted some links to logical fallacies. Care to address my argument more directly? The key problem here is that while this bug that may have a workaround (and that workaround is questionable to even work in all cases), it's that the bug does not manifest itself in a development environment, and occurs when you write code naturally. So, you are likely to introduce the bug, but you don't get to know you have crash issues all over your app until you ship it to a lot of users. This, combined with the App Store review delay process, results in a situation where this platform is not tenable for professional software developers to use. edit: Laurent (RubyMotion lead) has chimed in and raised the priority of this issue, this is great news