X-NEWS: spcvxb alt.folklore.computers: 10102 Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0 13.10.90 VAX/VMS V5.4; site spcvxb.spc.edu Path: spcvxb.spc.edu!njin!uupsi!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!lll-winken!uunet!sli!composite!news Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: The infamous Gary Barnes SPR Message-ID: From: composite!ed@sli.com Date: 5 May 91 15:16:04 GMT Lines: 142 Due to requests from Joe Newcomer and others here is the infamous Gary Barnes SPR. The SPR was submitted by Gary in 1980. The SPR was read at a DECUS in 1984. The session in which it was read was part of the 20th anniversary of 36 bit computers. The story told at the time was that DEC never responded or published this SPR, but the response was posted on the wall at the Large Systems Group for a year. I talked the speaker with a copy and explained that I was working with Gary. He let me take a copy back to Gary. ------------------------------------------------------------- TOPS-20 4(3247) MOUNTR 4(64) Dec/1/80 Problem: MOUNTR was obviously never tested. MOUNTR is basicly a mound of decayed, worm eaten, and fly besotten fecal matter. Diagnosis: There is code in there that literally must be executed in order for it to run properly and DDT break-points and STOP codes placed in that code never occur. ie There literally exist no Jrsts or Calls to that code. The account (Usage) records that it writes are almost completely wrong. There are more fields which are wrong than fields which are correct. There are even more fields left erroneously blank than there are fields which are correct. There are half word fields used as accumulators for things that could easily exceed 256K, ie. number of records read and written on a tape. It keeps around fake "mount request" blocks after the instigating dismount request is gone, ie. mount a structure, dismount it, and you (sometimes) cannot mount it again due to the extraneous blocks hanging around. The person who wrote it was obviously not an Ace Macro Hacker even though his user name was R.ACE. He obviously had never seen or written Macro before. The comments are often misleading and not uncommonly wrong, ie the code without the comments would be easier to understand. It is easily confused if the operator does something strange (ie wrong order of commands with tape initializes and setting drives off-line and such) or if the drives go a little flakey due to device errors. This usually results in its having to be killed and restarted. Someimes INFO has to be restarted also. The VOLID in the Usage record is usually set to be the logical tape name that the user happened to use. The Read/Write counts are either zero or they are astronomically incorrect. The error counts are truly creative acts of fiction. The label type is incorrect and is quite often the label type of a tape mounted by another user in the recent past, usually on another drive. MOUNTR was obviously tested by the learn-to-swim method. Ie. You throw the customers into MOUNTR infested water and see how many get eaten alive before they learn to swim. I have it from our local DEC office that the Field Test sites complained of grossly incorrect Usage records to which DEC responded with an "it will be fixed". I was also told that the final release has the same errors in the Usage records. The programmer involved should be sent to school to learn how to do things or he should be promoted to a position where he cannot damage future software. Cure: Wem are currently rewriting large portions of MOUNTR. We fix an average of 10 bugs a day for each day that we can stomach working on this code. PS: As I was writing this, rather vitrolic, SPR I was informed by our local DEC'ee that R.ACE, the author of this abomination, has left DEC for other places. To this I respond, HURRAH HURRAH HURRAH. --------------------------------------------------------- reply from DEC ---------------------------------- MOUNTR IS A PIECE OF SHIT. Thank you for your SPR on MOUNTR. Your diagnosis is entirely correct. MOUNTR was never tested and was intentienally coded poorly. MOUNTR is part of a test to see just how bad a product can be. Thus far the test has been highly successful and it will enter phase 2 with the release of GALAXY 4.1 and the mountable device allocator code in QUASAP. Now dealing with your SPR in detail we shall address each problem. 1. MOUNTR was never tested, not even once, that it loads at all is a surprise to all of us here at DEC. You are lucky it assembles. 2. MOUNTR is a mound of fly besotten fecal matter, the flies won't touch it. 3. There is code in MOUNTR which must not be executed for anything to work at all. This code4 will totally destroy the validity of any accurate information which happens to be around. Breakpoints and stop codes placed in these locations will be hit continuously. 4. The accounting records are completly wrong. There is code in MOUNTR to check the correctness of each field before it is written and change the field if it happens to contain valid information. 5. There are 2 bit fields which are supposed to contain numbers in the range 4-10. 6. It not only keeps fake mount request blocks but it changes the real ones using a complex formula involving the phase of the moon, number of federal judges in Wyoming and the price of OPEC oil in pesos. 7. You are correct the person who wrote MOUNTR had never seen MACRO before, as a matter of fact none of us here at DEC can read or write at all. This answer is being typed by a monkey who is hitting the keys at random. 8. It is easily confused if the operator does something strange. For example, if the operator picks his nose with a shark's tooth MOUNTR will die with an illegal memory write. 9. Thank you for your compilment on the error counts being truly creative acts of fiction. We are rather proud of our-error count determination formula: ERROR=PI/2*(numbers of users on system)/(processor serial number)+ (milliseconds since the hostages were taken in Iran)**2 10. The final release had totally different and much worse errors in the usage records than those errors reported during field test. 11. No school in the country would take any of us. We are grade school dropouts who program to support our alcoholism and debauchery. 12. Good luck rewriting MOUNTR. If you can make it work at all I will be amazed