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From: "Paul Derbyshire" <derbyshire AT globalserve DOT net>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 23:42:13 -0400
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Subject: Re: Mysterious gdb behavior.
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On 2 Aug 2002 at 17:37, Max Bowsher wrote:

> > In any event, yes, you're not allowed to publicly contradict me.
> 
> Umm... free speech?

Umm...anti-defamation laws? Trying to make someone you personally 
dislike look like an idiot in a public setting by contradicting or 
ridiculing them qualifies as defamation, by the way.

> > Given the context it is an attack.
> 
> You state that Windows works in a particular way. I correct you, because it
> doesn't work like you think. Sorry, I don't see where the problem is.

The problem is that you are trying to tar me some kind of idiot! I 
will not stand for someone publicly painting me with that kind of 
brush. I expect the same kind of responses other people get when they 
come here posting with problems with gdb or whatever. Other people 
aren't treated so rudely as I have been, and other people don't get 
followups that attempt to make them look like idiots. Therefore I 
shouldn't be treated that way. So stop doing it.

> Hmm, I wonder why? The _only_ difference between you and other listmembers that
> is visible to the list is the content of your postings. I.e., it is what _you_
> have said on the list that has caused this different treatment.

No, the difference is that someone has taken a personal dislike to 
me, for whatever reason. The reason is irrelevant. My postings are 
within the bounds of what's reasonable -- in particular they are 
civil. Therefore, whatever subjective feelings you may have you are 
expected to respond civilly and not in a way that seems designed to 
cause trouble and to sully my name.

> > Problems or no problems I don't want to bother with the enormous
> > amount of sheer nitpicking work required to propagate the change
> > consistently to everywhere the old name appears, and the risk of
> > breaking something if I miss one obscure instance. Especially not to
> > satisfy the needs of one subsystem, when everything else on Windows
> > outside of Cygwin seems to find my existing user name just peachy.
> 
> I agree. Changing your Windows username is not the ideal solution to this
> problem.

Then why didn't you just say so, instead of appearing to disagree and 
insulting my intelligence with every posting?

> However, I wish to establish the fact that the amount of sheer
> nitpicking work that you refer to is zero.

Bull. If I change my username to Zaphod Beeblebrox, to make things 
consistent I'd have to rename my home directories (Windows and cygwin 
both) to Zaphod Beeblebrox. Then there's all the MRU lists that refer 
to files in Paul Derbyshire directories. Then there's any 
configuration file that refers to such a directory, and anything else 
of that general sort... and of course /etc/passwd. And if I don't do 
these things? Configuration files left referring to the old directory 
will break things. MRU lists would break and I'd have to re-find a 
bunch of documents to get them the way they should be again. If the 
directories are not renamed, Windows will start up complaining that I 
don't have a home directory, or some file or other can't be found, or 
it will create a new one for me and then I have to move my files to 
it, fix the MRU lists, or live with having two of the damn things... 
If the Cygwin one is not renamed we're back to square one anyway.
The only way it could be done with zero hassles would be to do some 
kind of global search and replace, but that's doomed to failure -- 
there's no way to global search and replace the file names in the 
filesystem itself, the contents of text files and the contents of the 
registry could be done but only separately, and it would break a 
million things -- for example my mailer would start identifying me as 
Zaphod Beeblebrox when its configuration file was included in the 
search and replace. Plus any app that stores its configuration in 
binary files not in the registry would be missed... You're talking 
about a good half hour renaming things and a good week or three 
ironing out the kinks whether an automated search and replace is done 
or not.

Frankly, the lengths you'll go to to support an insulting claim about 
me, e.g. that I'm wrong about something, are amazing. What motivates 
your evident dedication to this self-appointed task? What did I ever 
do to you?

> The only thing for me to be aware of is that if I regenerate
> /etc/passwd with mkpasswd, it will use the wrong home directory.

Says he who just got through claiming there were no gotchas.

> No one said that changing your Windows username was the only way round this.
> It was merely raised as one possible option.

But when I dismissed it as too much pain and hardship you lambasted 
me.

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