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Date:      Mon, 7 Nov 2005 18:05:37 -0600
From:      linimon@lonesome.com (Mark Linimon)
To:        Sean McNeil <sean@mcneil.com>
Cc:        Bill Paul <wpaul@FreeBSD.ORG>, ume@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: recent MFC code to 6-STABLE kills ipv6
Message-ID:  <20051108000537.GC16191@soaustin.net>
In-Reply-To: <1131391243.1343.6.camel@server.mcneil.com>
References:  <20051107182338.2D9CE16A420@hub.freebsd.org> <1131391243.1343.6.camel@server.mcneil.com>

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On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 11:20:43AM -0800, Sean McNeil wrote:
> > The dc(4) driver supports a whole bunch of different chips. It really
> > really really matters that you tell us exactly which one you have.
> 
> How could this possibly matter?  There were no changes to the dc0 driver
> from Nov 1st to present.

The essence of good bug reports is to report any fact that might _possibly_
be relevant.  It helps to quickly eliminate possibilities.

This isn't just true for FreeBSD; I have fought this battle for decades
in this profession.  Sometimes even as I'm composing a bug report I find
myself walking through my list of unstated assumptions about what the
problem "must" be.  Half the time one of my assumptions is bogus.

This is not a criticism of the OP, this is just how engineering works --
if we presuppose too much about the problem, rather than just reporting
symptoms, we can wind up going around in circles.

The PR database has many hundreds of such entries, unfortunately.

mcl



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